Whose side were you on, daddy?
If you think politics in Poland can be fractious and unpredictable, spare a thought for the Czech Republic. Recently, Czech politicians have been caught up in a conflict over the independence of the local media that has brought hundreds of thousands of Czechs into the streets. This has threatened the political stability of the government, as well as brought Vaclav Havel, the Czech president, into an open war with the country's political parties. Interestingly, the Czech conflict brings into focus the potential for future problems in the relationship between Polish politics and the media, a conflict that is already simmering.
One immediate observation is that there is a curious asymmetry between the events in the Czech Republic and the situation in Poland when it comes to the media and the public. To recap, the mass demonstrations and the effective shutdown of Czech state television revolve around protests by the public and Czech journalists over the appointment last month of Ji½i Hodacz as the new head of Czech state television. Although officially non-party, he is regarded as being close to the leader of the main opposition party, Vaclav Klaus. This move was seen as an attempt to politicize the Czech media and has resulted in the conflict. The reaction of the Polish media has been one of broad support for the Czech strike and calls for Hodacz's removal.
Particularly vocal in its reporting of events in the Czech Republic has been Poland's main center-left daily newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza. Through the reports of its Prague correspondent, the paper has conducted an attack campaign bordering on the slanderous against Klaus and Hodacz. Bizarrely, this is in contrast to the same newspaper's position on the parlous state of Polish state television, which has been heavily politicized over the past few years since the appointment of its chairman, Robert Kwiatkowski. His previous role was chief campaign adviser to President Alexander Kwasniewski in the 1995 presidential elections.
Few commentators disagree that Polish television, especially its news reporting, is in the pocket of the opposition Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) party, yet Gazeta Wyborcza has treated Kwiatkowski and his policies with kid gloves. A closer examination of the situation, however, explains this paradox: Kwiatkowski was appointed head of TV with the votes of the Freedom Union (UW) party which Gazeta Wyborcza openly supports sympathizers on the National Radio and Television Council.
Journalists in Polish television, too, in contrast to their Czech colleagues, have been content until now to accede to the politicization of their profession without a murmur. Yet that may be changing. Last week saw the publication of an open letter of support for the Czechs from some leading Polish journalists, both within television and the press. More significant was the announcement by the parliamentary Speaker, Maciej Plazynski, that he would be introducing amendments to Poland's broadcasting law modeled on the solution being promoted in the Czech Republic. This recommends that heads of state media are only selected from the ranks of professional associations and not from party machines. It remains to be seen how Gazeta Wyborcza reacts to a proposal that politically serves to undermine the positions of those media officials it supports.
But the increasing loss of credibility by the Polish media is caused not only by attempts to institute party political control over it, but also if we are to believe Lech Kaczynski, Poland's justice minister its infiltration by Polish intelligence. In a sensational statement last week, Kaczynski said maverick officers of Poland's UOP (Office of State Security) were behind a series of articles in Rzeczpospolita, Poland's leading national daily, exposing scandals affecting top Solidarity Election Action (AWS) politicians. The articles involved one Cabinet minister and a provincial governor, and Kaczynski claimed that he was next on the list together with other ministers of the Buzek government. In the face of a lack of more specific evidence, Kaczynski was criticized by cross-party members of Parliament's Security Services Committee. Yet it does remain a paradox that the articles seemed to be aimed at members of one faction of AWS, leaving members of other factions untouched.
Kaczynski's conclusion is that the press may be an unwitting tool in a power struggle involving governing politicians prepared to use intelligence sources to provide information to sensation-seeking journalists.
The events in the Czech Republic and the statements of Kaczynski have reopened a debate about the relationship between politics and the media that has never really gone away in Poland. Yet until now that debate has been confined to the corridors of power in Polish politics, hardly at all seeming to affect the public mood or to provoke a sustained campaign of protest by Polish journalists. In previous political upheavals, Poles were smug enough to point out that where they led, the Czechs usually followed. Time will tell whether the events in Prague in the past couple of weeks presage a role reversal that few Polish politicians or journalists had suspected would be possible here.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw Director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl
