Announcing The Geneva Observer, a new media platform for International Geneva. With a mission. (1/3)
This article is the first in a three-part series written by our founder, Philippe Mottaz, leading up to The Geneva Observer’s beta soft launch. Keep an eye out for our articles, portraits and podcasts on our website. We look forward to your comments and reactions.
The Geneva Observer’s overall mission is to offer the Swiss and international public quality journalism and sophisticated content curation about International Geneva. The Geneva Observer will operate at the nexus of journalism, scholarly research, and public policy. It will focus on the dominant forces that affect our lives, shape our societies, and transform the world. Our global readers will be taken on an exploration of the most relevant issues and ideas of our time. Our content will be published in English and French.
International Geneva?
For Manouk Borzakian, a geographer with the Swiss Technology Institute in Lausanne (EPFL) who studied it as a knowledge cluster, “Geneva is the world’s smallest global city”. For Jean-Yves Art, Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships at Microsoft, a Frenchman steeped in European law working for a Silicon Valley giant, “International Geneva is a mindset. There is no other place like it in the world. It is at the heart of the international system”.
“International Geneva is a mindset. There is no other place like it in the world. It is at the heart of the international system”
We like these two definitions: they contrast Geneva’s small-scale geography with its large-scale impact. Indeed, your smartphone wouldn’t work if it weren’t for the standards developed by the International Telecommunication Union. Barely two floors above our office, in the Nations Quartier of Geneva, A.I. and deep learning are being used to create ironclad forensic evidence to ensure the successful prosecution of war criminals. We are not far away from CERN and the world’s most powerful particle collider. The foundation behind Libra, Facebook’s new controversial venture into cryptocurrencies, is only 15 minutes away by tram or electric bike. Between 1901 and 2017, about 20 Geneva-based organizations won a Nobel Prize. In the last two years, 3 Swiss scientists were added to the distinguished winners’ list.
A global think-tank with a small footprint
Welcome to International Geneva, a unique and innovative transdisciplinary ecosystem, the human rights and humanitarian capital of the world, the center of the Global Health discussion, and so much more! With the presence of the United Nations, of more than 750 NGOs, of some of the largest multinational corporations, of higher education and research institutions, and of a vibrant community of private and public innovators, International Geneva, and its broader region operate as a global “think tank”.
Geneva unites the top-down world of global governance with the bottom-up activism of civil society.
“Cities send you messages”, such as “you could do more, you should try harder”, remarked once the venture capitalist and technologist Paul Graham. For him, Cambridge, Massachusetts, “feels like a town whose main industry is ideas, while New York’s is finance and Silicon Valley’s is startups”. International Geneva’s? Put your ear to the ground, eavesdrop in the cafés and restaurants, and you will hear it: how do we find new ways to foster peace? How do we eradicate the worst diseases from the face of the earth? How do we prevent cyberwars? How do we bring science into play to make an evidence-based decision?
The Canton of Geneva’s official website sums up International Geneva’s DNA in three words: “Peace- Rights-Well-being”. Simply put, International Geneva represents the continuous attempt to move to a smarter, more just, more peaceful, more equal, more sustainable world through international cooperation. The convergence of information and bio-technologies, robotics, neuroscience, the rise of A.I., and deep learning mean tectonic changes for our societies.
As we enter the 4th industrial revolution, Geneva is where technology meets humanity.
A global city in need of a journalistic platform
International Geneva is one of the only “global cities” without an independent media outlet solely dedicated to its coverage. As journalists, academics, intellectuals, and engaged citizens, we believe this is politically consequential. If, as The Washington Post claims in its signature, “democracy dies in darkness”, we say multilateralism too. Are multilateralism and international cooperation a conspiracy to impose an order upon the world, as populists and strongmen around the world want us to believe? Or is it the simple recognition that meaningful actions to remedy our current challenges must, by necessity, be global?
Notwithstanding this, Geneva is the birthplace of modern multilateralism, and it remains one of the best vantage points from which to observe and chronicle its metamorphosis. How is the new geopolitical order playing out in Geneva? How are China, or Russia, responding to the U.S. continuous disengagement from multilateral institutions? Will the U.N. be able to reform itself from within, or will it be pushed to do so? How are civil society and the private sector being integrated into global governance, and with what effects? These are some of International Geneva and The Geneva Observer’s “meta-questions”.
So many stories, so little space. Until now.
Aside from these geopolitical considerations, from a strictly journalistic point of view, International Geneva offers a formidable smorgasbord of exciting and meaningful stories to tell. Yet, strangely enough, with the few exceptions of a significant diplomatic summit, a damning report on a major human rights violation, a meeting between warring parties, a global health crisis, International Geneva mostly escapes the radar of global media outlets. We understand that competition for space is fierce in a hyper-global, hyper-accelerated news environment. The local press’ main focus is elsewhere. News cycles have to be followed. At The Geneva Observer, we will make a point of not being constrained by such rules. International Geneva is our sole and only focus. If a story deserves to be followed-up, we will follow it up.
If we feel that it needs to be approached from three different angles in three different ways, that’s fine with us. We will be on the constant lookout for ideas that have not gone mainstream but should, for agents of change, for doers and for makers.
Transmedia, multimedia, cross-media, whichever way you want to call it, when fully mature, The Geneva Observer will do print, audio, video, infographics, and data journalism. We might complement a long read by a podcast rather than an editorial. Or vice-versa. A profile might be written with an interview attached for you to have the pleasure of reading a compelling piece of journalism or hearing the voice of our guest. Or both.
Solid writing and good storytelling go hand in hand with quality, innovative journalism. Even when we’re being wonks, we’ll try never to be boring.
A few days away from a soft-launch
In a few days from now, over October and November, we will soft-launch The Geneva Observer on our website and take it for its maiden spin. We will be publishing a smattering of stories so you get an idea of how we will concretely translate our mission and our ambitions. Through investigations, features, news, analysis, profiles, and book reviews, we’ll try to give you, in English and in French, a good sense of what we will have in store for the future. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will The Geneva Observer. Trust, credibility, and of course, habits take time to develop.
We are excited to have a great network of partners, among them, the Swiss-French leading daily newspaper Le Temps will be republishing some of The Geneva Observer’s content in its pages or online.
I will be collaborating with my friend and colleague Stéphane Bussard, co-signing most of those early stories. Having co-authored #Trump- De la Démagogie en Amérique before the elections back in 2016, we’ve been on the road together.
We plan to add other signatures over the next two months. If you would like to contribute, do send us some examples of your stories, and we’ll read them with great care.
How to help?
Ever since we conducted our first focus groups, the response to The Geneva Observer, then a mere project, has been immensely encouraging. Today, the most straightforward way to help us move forward is by sharing this post around, by encouraging your friends and colleagues to do the same, and by asking them to register to our newsletter. The best way is to join the growing community of members of The Geneva Observer association. It’s a small fee, but it will mean the world to us.
Next on Medium: more than just a digital platform, an experience.
“A coffee shop with a media outlet, not the other way around”: over the last few months, what was thrown as a joke during one of our early brainstorming sessions has turned into a guiding principle in the development of The Geneva Observer. Think of a salon or a gathering place to bring together, and engage with, our community of readers. At one end of the spectrum, it might be a quick lunch with a special guest around a food-truck, or fifteen chairs in our open newsroom for a Q&A on a particular topic or at the other end, a more formal affair. It is part of our wish to operate as a virtuous journalism cycle, linking our readers and members with the public and private sector, civil society, and academia. We call it The Geneva Observer Experience, the subject of my next post. I hope you stay tuned.
