Anyone who wanted to watch news on the Polish public broadcaster TVP on Wednesday was disappointed: instead of the program there was only a placeholder with the logo and a Christmas star. The news channel TVP Info and its internet portal were even completely switched off. It wasn’t a technical glitch: Donald Tusk’s new pro-European government has begun a major cleanup of the public media.
Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz fired the entire leadership of the public broadcaster in one fell swoop. The decision affects the CEOs and supervisory boards of TVP, Polish Radio and the PAP news agency, his ministry said. New supervisory boards have already been appointed and they will elect new board members.
The main news on TVP was also canceled in the evening at 7:30 p.m. Instead, viewers saw the well-known television journalist Marek Czyz, who once had to leave the station. “Every Polish citizen who finances the public media has the right to demand factual, professional and honest information from them,” said Czyz. That’s why there will be a different type of news program from Thursday: “No soup, but clear water.”
Tusk: Party propaganda spread
The restructuring of public broadcasting is one of the priorities of the Tusk government. She accuses the media of spreading party propaganda over the past eight years under the national-conservative PiS government. Particular attention is paid to TVP, popularly known as “TVPiS”. Several international organizations have also criticized the one-sided reporting in the public media.
On Tuesday evening, Parliament had already passed a resolution to “restore the legality and impartiality” of the public media. It said these media had lost their legal mandate to provide reliable and impartial information and had become partisan media. The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of State Participation, which is involved in the institutions through ownership committees, must now take corrective action.
One-sided reporting criticized
In the election on October 15, a three-party alliance of the former opposition led by Tusk won the government majority. The PiS, which had been in power since 2015, lost power.
International organizations had criticized the public media’s one-sided reporting on the election campaign. These have “completely transformed themselves into a propaganda arm of the ruling PiS” and are participating in the denigration of their critics, according to a report by the European Center for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), which is mainly financed by the EU Commission.
The OSCE election observation mission complained that the public broadcaster “clearly favored the PiS in its reporting and at the same time showed open hostility towards the opposition.” Socio-political events were consistently portrayed in a distorted and openly partisan manner.
TVP Info in particular became an object of hatred among many PiS opponents in the population. After a radio presenter described Tusk as “red-haired and mean”, many participants in a large demonstration against the PiS during the election campaign appeared with red-haired wigs.
The PiS called for the defense of TVP and freedom of the press. On Tuesday evening after Parliament’s decision, several MPs rushed to the station’s broadcasting center, including party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Some parliamentarians were still there on Wednesday. However, the call found no response among PiS supporters. The police finally cordoned off the area in front of the radio station.
