Warsaw, Dec. 21, (dpa/GNA) – Poland’s new government began dramatic reforms of the country’s public service media on Wednesday in an effort to restore impartiality to what critics called a propaganda wing of the former ruling party.
Polish state news channel TVP Info and its website were switched off completely on Wednesday, while public broadcaster TVP displayed only a placeholder image of the channel’s logo and a poinsettia instead of the normal programme.
The moves come a week after new Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his pro-European Union coalition government were sworn into office.
Culture Minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz fired the entire management of the public broadcasters in one fell swoop on Wednesday, removing chief executives and board members at TVP, Polish Radio and the PAP news agency, his ministry announced.
New supervisory boards have already been appointed and will elect new board members, the ministry said.
The reorganization of public broadcasters is one of the top priorities of Donald Tusk’s new government.
“Such public service media as we currently have do not deserve funding from taxpayers’ pockets,” Tusk said earlier.
Well-known TV journalist Marek Czyz, who was once forced to leave TVP, returned on Wednesday as the broadcaster cancelled its normal evening news programme.
“Every Polish citizen who finances the public media has the right to demand factual, professional and honest information from them,” said Czyz.
He said there would be a different kind of news programme beginning on Thursday: “Not soup, but clear water.”
In recent years, opposition critics and watchdogs have accused the nationalist-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party of turning Polish public media into partisan propaganda outlets.