Poland’s new government sacks state TV, radio and news bosses

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Asked about developments with Polish state media, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán said he doesn’t want to intervene in Polish internal affairs.

But, he said, more broadly there are “strange things” in the western democracy world.

Something is happening that is not in order, he noted.

’Anarchy’: Polish president criticises new government over media moves

Andrzej Duda, Poland’s president, spoke out this morning against the new Polish government’s moves to change state media.

This week, the country’s new culture minister, Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, announced that the chairs and boards of state television, news and radio had all been removed, prompting lawmakers from the conservative Law and Justice party to protest outside the headquarters of state broadcaster TVP.

The TVP 24-hour news service’s regular broadcast was suspended on Wednesday.

Speaking on private broadcaster Radio Zet this morning, Duda said the new government’s measures violated the constitution by skipping the necessary parliamentary procedures, Reuters reported.

“These are completely illegal actions,” the Polish president said. “This is anarchy.”

People stand outside the Polish public television TVP building as protesters and Law and Justice politicians gather after Poland’s new government took a public news channel off the air and dismissed executives from state media to restore “impartiality,” the culture ministry said, in Warsaw, Poland, December 20, 2023. Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters

Shaun Walker

The new Polish government has gutted the top management of public television, making good on a campaign promise to reform a broadcaster that functioned as a mouthpiece of its rightwing populist predecessor, but also prompting criticism of their methods from some quarters.

The government led by prime minister, Donald Tusk, was sworn into office last Wednesday. It has promised to launch an ambitious programme to reverse the damage done to rule of law in the country during eight years of government by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Under PiS, state media was accused of promoting the party’s policies and launched vicious, personal attacks on opposition figures, and Tusk in particular. “We will need exactly 24 hours to turn the PiS TV back into public TV. Take my word for it,” Tusk said during a campaign rally in early October.

In the end, it has taken his government a week. On Tuesday, the new parliament adopted a resolution calling for the restoration of “impartiality and reliability of the public media”. After the resolution, the new culture minister, Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, announced that the chairs and boards of state television, news and radio had all been removed.

The vote prompted PiS lawmakers to stage a protest outside the headquarters of TVP, the state broadcaster. “There is no democracy without media pluralism or strong anti-government media, and in Poland these are the public media,” the PiS leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, told reporters at the entrance of the state television building on Tuesday evening, promising that the protest would go on indefinitely.

The TVP 24-hour news service’s regular broadcast was suspended on Wednesday, with only the television logo visible on TV screens.

Read the full story here.

Police stand outside the Polish public television TVP building as protesters and Law and Justice politicians gather after Poland’s new government took a public news channel off the air and dismissed executives from state media to restore “impartiality,” the culture ministry said, in Warsaw, Poland, 20 December 2023. Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters