The management of Polish public television, radio and news agency PAP have been dismissed, the culture ministry said on Wednesday (Dec.20), as one public news channel that critics said had become politicised under the previous government went off air. Later that day, new managers were appointed to lead the public media outlets.
Poland's new government dismissed executives from state media to restore "impartiality", the Culture Ministry said on Wednesday, while a public news channel went off the air as Prime Minister Donald Tusk's reform drive faced its first big test.
Tusk's pro-European Union coalition took power last week from the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which critics say damaged judicial independence, soured European Union relations and turned state-owned media into an outlet for propaganda during its eight years in office.
Tusk's plans for change, though, are facing a fight from the outset from the former ruling party.
Dismissals at state television, radio and news agency PAP on Wednesday came after the new parliament on Tuesday adopted a resolution for restoring public media impartiality.
New chiefs of public media outlets have were appointed later on Wednesday, with Tomasz Sygut, Paweł Majcher, and Marek Błoński taking over management of TVP, Polskie Radio, and PAP, respectively.
The resolution called on "all state authorities to immediately take action aimed at restoring constitutional order in terms of citizens' access to reliable information and the functioning of public media".
PiS sharply attacked the dismissals on Wednesday. Police were called as some PiS politicians appeared at state broadcaster TVP headquarters and other state media offices.
The state-run 24-hour news channel TVP Info, a strong critic of Tusk that has sought to portray him as dishonest and under the sway of Germany and Russia, stopped broadcasting.
"The end of TVPiS," Civic Platform - the biggest party in the new government - said on social media platform X after TVP Info stopped airing.
The government has vowed to create stations that would take a more balanced approach to public service broadcasting.
Supporters of TVP Info say shutting it would damage pluralism by removing a conservative voice. The broadcaster has backed PiS's hardline on EU migration debates.
Tusk's predecessor, Mateusz Morawiecki, called the management dismissals a takeover and illegal.
PiS politicians had already appeared Tuesday evening at TVP to "defend democracy", as their leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski told reporters outside, according to media footage.
"It is clear that PiS politicians do not defend media freedom, they defend freedom for their own propaganda," Miłosz Motyka, from coalition party PSL, said on Polsat News.
Culture minister: have a little patience
Police were called on Wednesday to maintain order as PiS politians occupied TVP and other state media buildings.
"For us, it doesn't matter who the report comes from, regardless of whether they are PiS (lawmakers) or from another party," police spokesperson Sylwester Marczak told a news conference.
The head of the National Broadcasting Council said the dismissal of public media authorities broke the law.
"Disabling the television signal and the TVP Info websites is an act of lawlessness and recalls the worst times of martial law," Maciej Świrski added referring to events during the communist era in Poland.
Świrski was appointed to the broadcasting council by the last parliament, after he was recommended by PiS.
PiS lawmaker and former deputy justice minister Marcin Romanowski said he had submitted a report to the prosecutor's office on suspicion that the culture minister and his associates had committed a crime.
Culture Minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz said PiS's protests would not change the dismissals.
"Have a little patience," he told lawmakers when asked on PiS's actions in parliament, according to news website Wyborcza.pl.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Reuters
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: OleksSH/Shutterstock