The Good News
By Aleksander Nowacki
It is always an uplifting sight when journalists uphold the highest ethical and professional standards of their trade. No doubt, independent media are among the pillars of civil society, so it is great to see that practically all publications in this country consider themselves gleaming examples of how the media should set about playing that role. It's a shame, though, that few others seem to agree with those self-evaluations.
Take Adam Michnik, the editor of Gazeta Wyborcza (GW), the largest daily newspaper in the land. Opinion is divided as to his aspirations to be the ultimate arbiter of fair and balanced news coverage and public conduct in general. He and his staff seem to think he is doing admirably. The rest of the world begs to differ.
Ever since Michnik made public Lew Rywin's bribery and/or extortion attempt, he has struck the pose of the last righteous man shepherding the country through the valley of darkness. Faced with a recent threat from Axel Springer's new publication, Fakt, GW has launched a new advertising campaign featuring Adam Michnik, a veteran of the opposition against the Communist rulers. "We at Gazeta Wyborcza care," Michnik says, "if Poland is a good or a bad country. We care. That is why we do what we do."
To prove the point and show just how much he cares, Michnik nearly beat up a female journalist who, during a radio interview, had the cheek to question him about his testimony to the prosecutors investigating the Rywingate affair. He accused the hapless interviewer of complicity in a crime of disclosing confidential information, even though she was merely referring to reports by other media.
What adds spice to the story is that the live interview was broadcast by a station belonging to the Agora holding, the country's largest media group and the publisher of Michnik's newspaper. The word on the street is that he tried to block a re-broadcasting of the interview at a later time, which is standard at the station, but was repelled by Agora's forceful CEO, Wanda Rapaczyńska.
Just in case you get the impression that Michnik and Gazeta Wyborcza are the villains of the piece here, take a look at other publications' handling of the allegations surrounding the role of Rywingate commission chairman Tomasz Nałęcz's wife in the drafting of the Radio and TV Broadcasting Act that gave rise to the whole scandal. Three newspapers published reports that Daria Nałęcz was in some way involved. Życie Warszawy said truthfully that Mrs Nałęcz merely wrote an opinion on a part of the Act not connected to the scandal. SuperExpress said she had "drafted the controversial fragments" of the legislation and called for Nałęcz to resign. When the likely source of the story was outed by GW, SuperExpress claimed angrily that investigating how it had picked the story up was in breach of professional ethics. There is no lack of the righteous in this country's media world - if you are prepared to believe what these people say about themselves, that is.
