Polish news media growing more independent, speakers say

The World This Week

By Joan Mower
freedomforum.org

05.03.01

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Boguslaw Majewski

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Polish news media, which played a vital role in freeing the country from Soviet domination, have become more independent and more critical of government over the past decade, Polish officials and a journalist agreed yesterday.

Boguslaw Majewski, minister-counselor at the Polish Embassy, said Poland's young, independent journalists shared the ideas and values of the new government when Poland regained its independence in 1991 after 46 years in the Soviet bloc.

There was an "understanding between the two sides that without support of the media, the state would not be able to do this revolution," said Majewski, a former journalist who spoke at a "The World This Week: Poland and Its Media" program in The Freedom Forum Newseum.

But since independence, media have assumed more of a watchdog role, which is their rightful place, Majewski said, adding that media and government should not be in a state of "cohabitation."

Tadeusz Zachurski, chief correspondent for Polish Public Radio and Washington correspondent for Wprost, a weekly news magazine, said journalists in Poland were the first among the Soviet Bloc countries to adopt Western-style practices.

But he said many journalists, who grew up during the political struggles of the 1980s, had to learn the "who, what, where, when" style of journalism. Under communism, the underground press was accustomed to writing political discourse rather than balanced facts.

Tadeusz Zachurski

With Poland becoming more integrated into Western Europe — it joined NATO in 1999 and its economy has grown quickly — it is becoming "just another boring country in Western Europe," said Majewski. Poland, he noted, no longer receives the kind of attention in international media that it received in the 1980s when Lech Walesa led the Solidarity trade movement.

Przemyslaw Grudzinski, Poland's ambassador to the United States, said in a taped interview that the underground press during the 1980s created a "powerful state that was more real than the real state." Free press and free speech, he said, were hallmarks of the Solidarity movement.

Indeed, the news media is Poland today are free, diverse and unrestricted. The country has 150 television stations, close to 800 radio stations and 88 newspapers. Zachurski said the media landscape was saturated with everyone competing for advertising money.

Commercial pressure, he said, can be "as bothersome" as censorship for journalists. Majewski noted that many foreign concerns had moved to buy stakes in Polish media. In some cases, "investors have tried to influence the content" in newspapers, he said.

The panelists discussed Polish history, particularly the country's role in the Holocaust, with Majewski, contending that "Polish society needs to know more about Polish history."

The news media have been working to educate Poles about subjects such as the Holocaust, Zachurski said, adding, "Poles were aggressors as well as victims."

As to the role of the Catholic Church and its media, Zachurski said "the church will be powerful as long as we have a Polish pope." He noted that the church owns a network of newspapers and broadcast outlets, although the church's agenda is no longer primarily political as it was during the 1980s.