Goszczynski:
By : Justyna Wrobel
Andrzej Goszczynski, 43, has been the director of the Press Freedom Monitoring Center (CMWP) since its inception in 1996. Since graduating from Warsaw University's journalism and political science department in 1981, he has worked for Na przelaj, a weekly newspaper aimed at teenagers, Polskie Radio Program 3 and Telewizja Polska (TVP). Goszczynski has also published articles in monthly papers Odra, Res Publica, Polityka, Zycie Warszawy and was the opinion editor of weekly English-language newspaper the Warsaw Voice until the end of last year. In addition, he has also written articles about the Press Freedom Center's activity for Rzeczpospolita, Wprost and Press. Created by the Polish Journalists Association, the center's mandate is to assist journalists, editors and publishers in their disputes with public authorities on the interpretation of press laws, which oftentimes date back to the communist era. The center's main goal, though, is to promote freedom of the press. As a non-governmental organization, the center does not receive any funding from the state budget. Rather, it raises money through a host of private and public supporters that include the Stefan Batory Foundation, the Freedom House, TVP and newspapers Rzeczpospolita, Super Express and Angora. Goszczynski spoke with the WBJ's Justyna Wrobel about the center's activities, the problems facing journalists here while they try to report the news and the overall atmosphere of media freedom in Poland. The following is a translated, edited version of their conversation.
Q: What are the center's primary goals?
A: The center was founded in 1996 by the Polish Journalists Association and its main goal is to aid journalists and publishers in legal disputes. These (problems) come mainly from small, local papers and are due to the simple fact that large papers, such as Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita, are wealthy and have money for legal services. Local papers are in a different situation. They don't have enough money to fund legal help for themselves. Media is a very specific branch of law in which a large number of lawyers and judges are not experts. We also participate in lawsuits. It turns out that participation of our type of organization has a big influence on what actually ends up in court. We influence the court's working by providing materials that allow judges to look at cases from different angles.
Q: There is a common opinion that the Polish Press Law is handicapped. What are the law's key faults?
A: The current press law was created in a completely different reality (in 1984) and because of that (the idea of an independent) publisher, doesn't exist. The publisher is the key person right now and in general, the most important. There are regulations in the press law that are not in tune with our century. The press law calls for the 'authorization' of interviews when the interviewed person asks for it. What does this authorization mean? Does it mean that the person who gives an interview is insane? That he doesn't know what he is saying? On the other hand, it derides journalists as well, because it gives the impression that they're ill-intentioned. Authorization derides both sides and should be given up. Actually, it is not in use anywhere in the world and in particular is not applied to people in the public eye. It's archaic. Moreover, there is a lack of regulations in press law that could clarify the media situation here. We have enclosed suggested regulations in the press-law project, which we wrote together with the Chamber of Press Publishers.
Q: Where does this draft law stand, and what other draft press laws are circulating?
A: We started working on our project at the same time when Bogdan Michalski's (a professor with Warsaw University's Institute of Journalism) draft was in the Sejm. His version was finally rejected not long ago. But Michalski's project (an opposing press law proposal) was very bad intellectually. It was a result of the former decade and extremely restrictive. In our project we took a completely different stand. It only regulates what has to be regulated. This is a basic difference in the perception of the law. Michalski's project was later rejected in the first reading in the Sejm.
Q: When was that?
A: (In October 1999). It had a very bad recommendation, also thanks to us. There was a very bad atmosphere about it. Fortunately, we were able to generate it (that impression) and now nothing is happening. Perhaps our draft will come out later.
Q: In the meantime, the 1984 law is still binding until a new law is passed and enacted. What changes would your draft law make?
A: There are serious controversies about the project because we are introducing some regulations that are binding in the majority of European countries. These regulations concern limits on the number of media one company can own in one area for example, can one entity own a paper and a TV station. (Daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza publisher) Agora is protesting against these regulations very strongly.
Q: You talked about shortcomings in the press law and mentioned that one modern-day problem is the role of the publisher
A: This is a fundamental matter because it shows how many problems are linked with the publisher. Those issues starting from ownership and end with interference in what goes into the paper. A lot of papers informed us that their publishers interfere with published articles. There is a question whether it should be like that or not, and whether this could be regulated. Another issue is limitation placed on certain publications by the courts. For example, in some places the courts have assumed the role of censor and it cannot be like that. For instance, it happened to Szczecin's Nowy Kurier, which was forbidden by the court not only to write about something, but even from gathering information about it. (The local court banned Nowy Kurier from writing about a land transaction in which the city council was involved). We sent (specific legal proposals) to Hanna Suchocka, justice minister, asking for her to look into the matter, but they sent back a letter refusing any cooperation. This is the typical arrogance of authorities. We have to be loud despite the current (negative) results. We have to shout about it when that's our only chance to be heard. Already, just the fact that we're talking about this is important.
Q: What other disturbing trends do you see in Polish journalism?
A: There are a lot of trends. There's one, though, that has been visible for many years: media connections with political groupings.
Q: Can you give an example of this?
A: Daily Zycie has ambitions not only to become an informative paper but also a 'public affairs' one. On the other hand, it presents a certain political option. What happens is that readers don't like it very much, and the success of the paper is less than hoped for. A similar situation exists at other papers, even those that are successful. Gazeta Wyborcza is an example of the greatest success on the Polish press market in recent years, and its prosperity proves that people want Gazeta Wyborcza. There are opinions, though, that people are irritated by the fact that the paper is too political and brings out a certain point of view in a very importunate way. And that is irritating.
Q: One of the center's tasks is to improve how the government both discloses information and responds to press criticism. Has the center made any headway in this area?
A: We're not able to impose sanctions against public administration. We can appeal to them and ask, though. And of course we do that, and sometimes it brings good results. The largest number of appeals is not to ministries, but to local governments because conflicts with journalists happen more frequently there. Local governments refuse to give any information about their activities and regularly break the law. We appeal to the authorities, pointing out faults in their way of thinking, and they often react to that.
Q: Is the media sued very often?
A: Very often, and it will happen more and more frequently. A lot of people in Poland have realized that an opportunity exists to get money from the media as compensation for published or broadcasted mistakes. When we started up the center, I had the naive vision that I would appeal to the Justice Ministry to give us access to existing press lawsuits. It turned out that nobody had information about this. There's nothing (available), and that's why we started to do things on our own. We put together the most serious database concerning the jurisdiction of press lawsuits. We started with the materials that our staff had. We sent letters to the courts several times, asking them to send us their verdicts. Some rejected us, others cooperated.
Q: How many press lawsuits have you registered in your database so far?
A: About 300. This includes the most recent ones since 1989.
Q: Which of these was the 'stormiest?'
A: No doubt, it was a suit filed by (President Aleksander) Kwasniewski against daily paper Zycie. There were several reasons for it. First, the head of the country files a claim against a paper that is already controversial. In the United States, this would be inconceivable because it's obvious that it wouldn't serve any purpose. (The president would be considered a public figure and would have to make the difficult case that the paper acted with malicious intent.) A politician should protect his reputation through his choices and decisions, not by suing somebody. Secondly, he demanded extremely high financial compensation, which is wrong in our opinion.
Q: The center has started work on a draft bill that would regulate the public's access to information. What do you hope to achieve by this?
A: This is a completely new thing. Poland needs serious regulations that will describe what kind of information has to be made available to citizens. What kind of information offices have to disclose; how they should do it. These kinds of regulations exist in the majority of democratic countries. This is (what is known as) the U.S.'s famous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). (FOIA, which requires all public bodies on the federal, state and local level to disclose a variety of information within a certain time frame. The U.S. Congress passed the law in 1966 and amended it in 1974). We decided to do it, too. Our recent experiences have confirmed this. I appealed to ZUS (the Social Insurance Office) to show me the contract it had signed with (information technology company) Prokom and they said it wasn't possible, because it was confidential. This cannot be tolerated because none of the public institutions are allowed to sign confidential contracts. The law on public orders forbids them to do that. So, there is a need for a regulation that describes everything precisely and clearly. We will create this project together with the legal program of the Stefan Batory Foundation and the Institute of Public Affairs. Our plans are to create a draft within three or four months and to start a large public campaign to collect 100,000 signatures. The next step is to put the draft in the Sejm by this fall.
