Nowy Dziennik editor gets tough on rabble-rouser
When Maciej Wierzynski returned to Warsaw a few weeks ago, it was as editor in chief of one of the largest overseas Polish-language newspapers, New York's Nowy Dziennik.
He came not only as a guest of the worldwide Polonia conference, but also as a reporter to cover the Polish-American Congress' (PAC) Edward Moskal, who has been making increasingly incendiary attacks against top Poles.
At a time when Polish Americans enjoy prestige and clout having acted to push through Poland's NATO accession the onetime influential emigre lobbying group, PAC, is being shunned by major national and regional politicos because of Moskal.
Attempts to depose him last year failed, said the campaign's architect John Radzilowski, because "many who deplore Moskal refused to get involved, even to sign a simple letter." Radzilowski says many well-educated Polish Americans are indifferent to the problems of PAC or the dust kicked up by Moskal. "Sooner or later Moskal's reign of error will end. The question is, who will be there to pick up the pieces?"
It's not Wierzynski's mission to lobby for Moskal's successor.
But as a veteran journalist in Poland and in the United States taking over Nowy Dziennik seven months ago, he's changed the paper's coverage of Moskal.
"Our editorial policy was to try and ignore him," Wierzynski said. "His influence on Polonia is very little, (and his attacks) so stupid, and irrelevant to our life."
The furor over Jedwabne and Moskal's attacks on those calling for serious attention to new revelations about it caused the change in Nowy Dziennik's policy. The last straw was Moskal's attack on Jan Nowak-Jezioranski the famous World War II Warsaw courier whom Moskal accused of being a Nazi collaborator.
Jedwabne was the site of a 1941 massacre of 1,600 Polish Jews. A new book by Jan Tomasz Gross, "Neighbors," alleges that they were killed by their Polish neighbors, and not by Nazis as local officials had claimed.
"Nowak is such a symbolic figure," Wierzynski said. "This was a furious attack on him, and the accusations were ... impossible to ignore. We took an editorial position on this issue. There are certain limits to stupidity and irrationality.
"Nowak is the latest victim. The previous one was Leon Kieres, the chairman of the National Memory Institute, the body investigating the Jedwabne incident. Moskal attacked him as a 'tool of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.' And before that he attacked Foreign Minister (Wladyslaw) Bartoszewski and Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek for their position on Polish-Jewish relations," Wierzynski said. "He's exempted only (Cardinal) Glemp and the Pope," adding that the Pope should be on Moskal's hit list as well because of his efforts to improve Polish-Israeli dialogue.
Wierzynski has covered the Jedwabne furor in depth.
"Since Gross is a New York University professor, we consider the topic very important," Wierzynski said. "We have given a lot of space to this debate. The other Polish-language papers have not." The paper's opinion pages and letters columns have overflowed with Jedwabne commentary.
Wierzynski said he recognizes that "there are some segments of Polonia that are incurably xenophobic and anti-Semitic." But Gross' book has been a catalyst for many others "to express their views, like in our case."
"My predecessors were very much for a Polish-Jewish dialogue but this issue made us take a very clear position," Wierzynski said. "For many people it was the moment of truth: Where are you on this issue? And in this sense, it is a very positive development."
He acknowledged the fear in Poland that it would damage the country's image, but doubts this has happened. For some Jews who were already convinced "that anti-Semitism was very strong," he said, this just confirmed their views. For others, however, the positions taken condemning the Jedwabne atrocities by (President Aleksander) Kwasniewski, (Prime Minister Jerzy) Buzek and even Glemp was a "positive surprise."
Nowy Dziennik was founded by Boleslaw Wierzbianski in 1971, when many other ethic papers were folding. His widow, Barbara Nagorski, and her U.S.-born son, Adam Wierzbianski, run the family business, the Bicentennial Publishing Corp., which includes a print shop, bookstore, art gallery and the newspaper.
Wierzynski began his reporting career in Poland during the communist regime. He left for a year after winning a Stanford University journalism fellowship. His U.S. colleagues years later rallied on his behalf when under martial law he was forced out of reporting and became a taxi driver to make ends meet. They helped him emigrate to the United States. He later returned to Poland to head Radio Free Europe and later become chief of Voice of America's Polish service.
He had always been interested in nurturing the next generation of Polish journalists, and was heading back to Warsaw to teach at Collegium Civitas when he was recruited to be editor in chief of Nowy Dziennik.
Part of his reason for staying was personal: His wife Eva is a New York consultant; his son Grzegorz just graduated from Yale; and Lech is still at Oberlin.
But much of the attraction was professional the challenge of shaping the future of Nowy Dziennik at a time of fierce competition from Polish media expanding overseas.
TV Polonia can be downloaded for $19 a month, and there are U.S. outlets for Polish state radio, Krakow's RMF FM and Radio Maryja. Polityka and Wprost can be bought on U.S. newsstands in Polish-American communities.
"And on top of that, you have some Polish dailies experimenting with publications here, Wierzynski said. "Super Express, for instance, has a New York edition, which is 80% Polish content and 20% local.
That can be a cost killer for a homegrown daily such as Nowy Dziennik with an average of 32-36 pages, compared to a six-page Super Express with most content coming from its parent paper in Poland. However, Wierzynski thinks that focusing on cutting-edge content vs. tabloid fluff is the route to success.
