In a country with 4 official languages, and in the complex landscape of international public service media, SWI swissinfo.ch is a pretty unique case (to say the least!).
With a mandate to reach the Swiss diaspora and a globally curious audience, the publisher needs to navigate linguistic diversity and localized contexts, all digital- and community-first.
Although you may not relate to their context, Swiss Info’s strategies to achieve all of the above certainly provide important lessons for the wider industry.
We spoke with Veronica DeVore, Head of Audience, to discuss the operational and editorial challenges of adaptation over translation, the role of community engagement across borders, and product-building for different audiences.
Key takeaways to copy & share
> SWI swissinfo.ch, the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, publishes in 10 languages with roughly three journalists per service and 75% of its audience outside Switzerland > The teams adapt rather than translate. Explaining the Swiss Federal Council, which has no single president, to a Chinese audience means inventing lexicons and style guides, not swapping words > A debate format replaced comment sections five years ago, with journalists posing specific themed questions. Auto-translation inside threads lets a reader in Brazil and one in Russia argue in their own languages > Products follow distribution constraints rather than the org chart. With the website partially blocked in Russia, the Russian edition leans on hour-long YouTube interviews instead > AI does the translation lifting, but a strict human-in-the-loop policy and published disclaimers protect the thing they actually trade on, which is trust
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