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More and more complaints about TVP’s coverage of the June 4 march. KRRiT is investigating the matter.

By wirtualnemedia.pl | 16 June 2023

The National Broadcasting Council has received 32 complaints about Polish Television’s coverage of the June 4 march. The regulator has only begun to investigate the case, so it is unclear at this point whether it will end in any punishment. The head of the National Broadcasting Council, Maciej Swirski, argued in the Sejm that private broadcasters are treated equally with public broadcasters when it comes to imposing penalties or processing licenses. “There is no equality,” assesses KRRiT member Prof. Tadeusz Kowalski in an interview with Wirtualnemedia.pl.

Maciej Swirski appeared before the parliamentary committee on culture and media on Wednesday in response to a summons formulated by the deputy head of the committee, MP Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus. At the same time, he declared that he did not like the title of the summons: “I want to point out that I will not inform the committee about (and I quote from the title of the summons) ‘abuse of statutory powers by the Regulator in the context of media freedom,’ because there are simply no such abuses,” he said.

During the discussion, a question was raised from opposition MPs as to why the regulator does not treat broadcasters equally and imposes fines or conducts proceedings only against independent media such as Radio TOK FM and TVN. It was also pointed out that the Chairman of the Council overlooks Polish Television and Polish Radio. Swirski responded that he treats all broadcasters equally, making no distinction between public and private television or radio. However, he could not answer how many investigations he had initiated since the beginning of the year in the case of public broadcasters – if only in connection with attacks on opposition politicians.

He indicated, however, that 32 complaints from citizens against TVP have already been filed regarding coverage of the June 4 march. “We are now waiting for documents from Polish Television relating to these complaints. This is because the procedure is as follows: a complaint is filed by a citizen, the chairman asks the broadcaster to provide the material, and if there is no such material, to refer to the substance of the complaint,” explained Maciej Swirski, adding, “In each case there is a request to refer to the complaint. At the moment we are waiting for TVP to refer to the subject of the complaint. We also demanded video footage of how Polish Television showed the march.”

“There is no equality”

However, KRRiT member Professor Tadeusz Kowalski disagrees with what the chairman says: – The words about equal treatment of all entities are not true. Public media are under a special umbrella. There are entities that “get on the fast track” and once-two concessions are issued to them, without creating problems. And then there are those that are disliked, and in this case there is splitting hairs and looking for any excuse to take longer to proceed.

As an example, our interlocutor cites the council members’ acceptance of the public media companies’ mission reports.

“An analysis of these reports, which was conducted by the public media department, shows that almost all of the regional broadcasting stations, as well as TVP and Polskie Radio, did not fulfill their charter of duty one hundred percent. They all had deviations, some even large deviations. But despite this, their reports were approved on Wednesday. So we have meticulous checking of some entities and acceptance of large deficiencies in others – so what equality are we talking about? There is no equality at all.”

TVP program board members complain

Among the 32 complaints about coverage of the march is also one sent by members of the program council of Polish Television, including Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus, who led Wednesday’s meeting in the Sejm. The complaint alleges that the public broadcaster, in the main edition of Sunday’s “News,” but also in broadcasts aired on June 4 on TVP Info, in covering the opposition march, acted in violation of the Broadcasting Act, particularly those points of the Act that impose on the broadcaster an obligation to fairly show events and phenomena in the country and abroad, and to maintain “pluralism, impartiality and balance.” The third charge is to broadcast content that “discriminates on the basis of beliefs, political views and any other views.”

“Even the BBC broadcast coverage of the march that day in a more prominent position than Polish Television. I consider the behavior of the public broadcaster scandalous. “News” in its current form must cease to exist on the first day after the opposition takes power,” Krzysztof Luft commented in an interview with Wirtualnemedia.pl.

“News” in May on TVP1, TVP Info and TVP Polonia was watched by an average of 2.13 million viewers, which gave the stations a 20.12 percent market share.