KEYSTONE-SDA reorganizes itself
KEYSTONE-SDA reorganizes itself
The Swiss News Agency operating under the new company name Keystone-SDA due to the merger between Keystone and SDA, reorganizes itself. Its multimedia offer - comprising text, photo, video and infographics from a single source - will be enriched. Its strong regional presence will be maintained. The reorganization takes place June 4th, 2018. In the course of this reorganization, Keystone-SDA focusses its services on the national and international news coverage. Therefore these two previously independent departments have been melted into one pool of journalists delivering news from home and abroad.
The Newsdesk directs the production of an integrated multimedia news package comprising text, photo and video in German, French and Italian.
Due to a large decrease in staff, Keystone-SDA was forced to adjust existing structures in order to further guarantee a substantial Swiss and international up-to-date news coverage. Swiss news coverage will remain a top priority, especially in terms of national politics.
Thanks to a close cooperation with partners all around the world Keystone-SDA will keep its ability to holistically cover important international issues, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year.
The foreign desk will be in charge of the news selection. Yet during one and a half hours each day (from 7 to 8.30 am) the international newswire will be automatically pushed to the customer’s editing system by our partner dpa or made available via www.sda-direct.ch. During the rest of the time the desk will select the news for the clients.
In the scope of its reorganization, Keystone-SDA increases its regional focus. All German speaking regional offices will now be managed by the Zurich Hub in organizational terms, in order to ensure that all offices “think multimedia” - bundling text, photo and video. Sports news are also embedded in the multimedia production.
The regional offices in Aarau, Basle, Bellinzona, Berne, Chur, Lucerne, St. Gall are assigned to the Zurich Hub. All offices in Western Switzerland – Geneva, Sitten, Lausanne, as well as the slightly strengthened news coverage from Freiburg-Neuenburg, Biel, Jura/Berne Jura – is being coordinated by the Hub in Lausanne, where text, photo and video journalists work in the same newsroom.
In the scope of its reorganization Keystone-SDA outsources its business news department to the financial news agency AWP. In return, AWP, which is part of the Keystone-SDA group, increases its resources by now employing 30 experienced journalists in Zurich, Berne and Geneva.
Thus, a holistic high quality coverage of national and international business news is guaranteed. The delivery remains the same. On business days AWP reports on micro- and macro-economic topics from 6.30 am to 6.30 pm.
A selection of the most important business news is linked to photos and as such ready to be published online. Keystone-SDA will no longer offer its daily news from Swiss and US stock market closure.
During the weekend Keystone-SDA will keep on embedding business topics of the Sunday press in its reviews. There will be less single business news items. “Breaking news” will be covered at any time - be it in the evening, at night or on the weekend. Regional business news will also be covered.
Should you have any questions concerning the reorganization or should you have technical problems please do not hesitate to contact us. Both, Jann Jenatsch, deputy managing director, and Winfried Kösters, editor-in-chief of the German editorial department will be pleased to answer your questions by telephone +41 31 309 33 33 or via email: jann.jenatsch@keystone-sda.ch and winfried.koesters@keystone-sda.ch.