After winning elections in October 2015, the Law and Justice Party, led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, made targeting the media one of its first priorities, starting with the influential public broadcaster. First, a temporary measure allowed the firing of the management and supervisory boards of the national television and radio broadcasters, allowing the party to replace them. A former party lawmaker became head of the TV station.
Then, the governing party passed a “bridge law” that created a new National Media Council that has party lawmakers as three of its five members. The effect on the public broadcaster of these changes has been striking: some 225 journalists have resigned or been fired, and the broadcaster’s news agenda now follows the government’s talking points in lock-step.
Private media are under pressure in more subtle ways, through a shift in advertising revenue from state-owned enterprises away from critics and towards pro-government outlets, and creeping restrictions on distribution of critical media at locations like state-owned gas stations. Journalists and outlets are grappling with shrinking access to government officials. Rhetorically, they face broadside attacks from a government that speaking of “re-Polonization” of the media, meaning ridding the sector of foreign ownership and eliminating “unpatriotic” views.
