Media Freedom Rapid Response Report Highlights Defamation Cases Among Major Threats to Polish Media
Presserwis | February 10, 2023
In 2022, there were 21 violations of media freedom in Poland, says a report prepared by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR). The platform emphasized that almost half of the cases involved journalists accused of defamation. For this reason, Tomasz Piątek (twice) and Grzegorz Rzeczkowski were sentenced in court proceedings.
As stated in the report, demanding access to public information was another major problem faced by Polish journalists who criticized the ruling camp last year. Among others, the report described Gazeta Wyborcza’s battle to disclose the opinion by the Institute for Legacy of Polish National Thought. The document contributed to the refusal by the District Prosecutor’s Office in Kraków to make the National Radical Camp illegal.
The MFRR report considered it extremely worrying that the Chairman of the National Broadcasting Council initiated an investigation against TVN after the Siła kłamstwa (Power of a lie) report about the Smolensk subcommittee was aired. “TVN has long been targeted by the Law and Justice government, and the result of the investigation may result in the station losing its license,” reads the report.