Poland's new government is restructuring the public media - and dismissing their management teams

Mouthpiece of the old PiS government - Poland's new government is restructuring the public media - and dismissing their management teams

Anyone who wanted to watch the news on Polish public broadcaster TVP on Wednesday was disappointed: instead of the program, there was only a placeholder with the logo and a poinsettia. The news channel TVP Info and its internet portal were even completely switched off. This was not a technical glitch: Donald Tusk 's new pro-European government has begun a major clean-up of the public media.

The main news on TVP at 7.30 p.m. was also canceled in the evening. Instead, viewers saw the well-known TV journalist Marek Czyz, who was once forced 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 is why there will be a different kind of news program from Thursday: "Not soup, but clear water."

One week after the Tusk government took office, Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz fired the entire management of the public broadcasters in one fell swoop. The decision affects the CEOs and supervisory boards of TVP, Polish Radio and the PAP news agency, his ministry announced on Wednesday. New supervisory boards have already been appointed and will elect new board members.

PiS politicians occupy television headquarters in Poland

The Ministry of Culture explicitly referred to a parliamentary resolution aimed at restoring the impartiality of the public media. For years, these were regarded as mouthpieces of the previous right-wing nationalist government.

Parliament passed the resolution to restore "the impartiality and reliability of the public service media" on Tuesday with the majority of the new coalition under Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The resolution stated that these media had lost their legal mandate to provide reliable and impartial information and had become party media. The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of State Participation, which is involved in the broadcasters via ownership bodies, must now take corrective action. Most MPs from the right-wing populist PiS party, which has been in power until now, boycotted the vote.

After the vote, PiS politicians occupied the TVP building on Wednesday night in order to defend "media pluralism", according to their own statements. "There is no democracy without media pluralism or strong media critical of the government, and in Poland that is the public media," said PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who joined the protesters together with former head of government Mateusz Morawiecki. An AFP reporter also spotted police officers positioned at the headquarters of public television.

Poland's president criticizes new Tusk government

Morawiecki spoke of a "violent intrusion" by the new television leadership. "We are seeing the first step towards a dictatorship," he emphasized to journalists. According to Kaczynski, the PiS politicians want to continue their protests in rotation. PiS MP Marek Suski reiterated on Wednesday that it was about defending "media freedom".

President Andrzej Duda, who is close to the PiS, criticized the new government's actions in the media sector. In the online service X, formerly Twitter, he called on Prime Minister Tusk and his cabinet to "respect the Polish legal order". He attached a letter to Tusk in which he emphasized that "a parliamentary resolution does not have the force of law".

The mouthpiece of the old PiS government: Poland's new government is restructuring the public media - and dismissing its leadership team

Tusk responded immediately and rejected Duda's request. "As I have already informed you, today's action is aimed at restoring the rule of law and common decency in public life, in line with our intention." Duda could count on the government's "iron determination" in this regard.

International organizations criticize freedom of the press in Poland

Following their election victory in October, Tusk and his alliance partners took over the government on Wednesday last week. The restructuring of public broadcasting is one of the Tusk government's priorities. The opposition and non-governmental organizations had previously repeatedly accused the PiS of increasingly restricting media freedom during its eight years in power, channelling considerable financial resources into the state media and turning them into mouthpieces for government propaganda. Particular attention is being paid to TVP, popularly known as "TVPiS".

The Polish newspaper "Rzeczpospolita" commented on the media restructuring on Thursday as follows: "It was already clear when Donald Tusk's new government was sworn in last week that the first measures (...) would affect four areas: the public media, the rule of law, relations with the EU and state-owned companies. And they did. In the corridors of parliament, the coalition was heard to say that changes in the public media were necessary before Christmas. The coalition's voters should already have the feeling during the Christmas and family holidays that the new government is really working. And the most important symbol should be Polish television and especially its flagship, the (news program) 'Wiadomosci'."

International organizations had criticized the public media's one-sided coverage of the election campaign. A report by the European Center for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), which is mainly funded by the EU Commission, stated that they had "completely transformed into a propaganda arm of the ruling PiS" and participated in the vilification of its critics.

The OSCE election observer mission complained that the public broadcaster had "clearly favored the PiS in its reporting and at the same time displayed open hostility towards the opposition". Socio-political events were consistently presented in a distorted and openly partisan manner.

TVP hated by PiS opponents

In 2020, the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) found that one-sided reporting and "hate speech" were still commonplace in the state media in Poland. The state media had been turned into "government propaganda mouthpieces". In its 2023 report, the organization noted that the PiS government was also increasingly trying to bring private media under its control.

Among many PiS opponents in the population, TVP Info in particular became an object of hatred. After a presenter on the channel described Tusk as "red-haired and mean", many participants wore red-haired wigs at a large demonstration against PiS during the election campaign.