Tusk authorities dismisses public media management | EUROtoday

The new Polish authorities has dismissed the whole management of the nation’s public media. Parliament had beforehand handed a decision to revive media impartiality.

Poland’s new pro-European authorities has fired the whole management of the general public media. The Ministry of Culture in Warsaw introduced that the choice impacts the CEOs and supervisory boards of the TVP tv station, Polish radio and the PAP information company. New supervisory board members have already been appointed. They would elect new board members.

The information channel TVP Info was switched off shortly afterwards and within the morning solely Christmas motifs may very well be seen on a steady loop.

Resolution on Restoration the impartiality

The Polish parliament had beforehand handed a decision supposed to revive the impartiality of public media. It says, for instance, that over the previous eight years, the general public broadcasters and the PAP information company have grow to be occasion media beneath the then national-conservative PiS authorities. These had “clearly carried out propaganda tasks”. The Ministry for State Investments, which has a stake within the establishments by means of possession committees, should now take corrective motion.

After the parliamentary session, many PiS MPs gathered late within the night in entrance of the TVP station’s headquarters to “protect” it – as they claimed on social media.

Media restructuring is a excessive precedence for Tusk

The decision got here as no shock: restructuring public broadcasters is among the prime priorities of Donald Tusk’s new pro-European authorities. The criticism is especially directed on the tv station TVP. About the station, Tusk stated:

In the election on October 15, a three-party alliance of the previous opposition led by Tusk gained the federal government majority. The PiS, which had been in energy since 2015, had misplaced energy.

OSZE: PiS incl reporting “clearly preferred”

International organizations had lengthy criticized the general public media’s one-sided reporting on the election marketing campaign. “The public media has completely transformed itself into a propaganda arm of the ruling PiS and serves not only to promote the party’s interests, but also to attack and denigrate its critics,” says a report by the European Center for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), which is principally financed by the EU Commission.

The OSCE election remark mission complained that the general public broadcaster “clearly favored the PiS in its reporting and at the same time showed open hostility towards the opposition.” Socio-political occasions had been persistently portrayed in a distorted and biased method.

intelligence chiefs exchanged

The new Polish authorities additionally changed the heads of the nation’s secret providers and anti-corruption company. Prime Minister Tusk additionally introduced this yesterday. The earlier heads of authorities had served beneath the earlier right-wing populist and eurosceptic authorities of the PiS occasion.

At a press convention, Tusk stated he anticipated “very good, loyal and disciplined” cooperation with the brand new administration, all of whom have important expertise of their areas of experience.

Dorota Gawecka would be the new head of navy intelligence. Agnieszka Kwiatkowska-Gurdak will head the Central Anti-Corruption Authority. Rafal Syrysko was appointed head of the home intelligence service, Pawel Szot as head of the international intelligence service and Jaroslaw Strozyk as head of the navy counterintelligence service.