Media moguls in the making

Tomasz Markowski from Law and Justice (PiS) came under fire last week for saying his party wants to control the media. "We have never had a real influence on the public media as a right-wing party. Now we want to have a very strong influence," said Markowski, PiS' deputy whip.

However, after a meeting with the chief whip, Markowski moderated his statements. Nevertheless, the amendments to the media law proposed by PiS seem to confirm the party's attempts at media control. 

Politicians from Civic Platform (PO), the League of Polish Families (LPR) and the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) have strongly criticized the planned amendment to the media bill limiting the number of KRRiTV members from the current nine to only three. According to PiS' proposals one member would be nominated by the President, one by the Prime Minister and one by the Sejm.

Jan Rokita from PO found the idea laughable: "It must be a joke. In that case, one member would be nominated by Lech Kaczyński, the second by Jarosław Kaczyński, while the third member would be appointed by Jarosław Kaczyński with possible consultations with somebody else, for example LPR. As a result, KRRiTV or should I say the Kaczyński twins, would nominate the leadership boards of all public media institutions in Poland."

PiS would like to liquidate KRRiTV altogether in the future, but in order to make such a drastic move the party would have to change the Constitution.

For the time being, KRRiTV still consists of nine members. A motion to sack its president, Danuta Waniek, was rejected by the council last week.