Poland's new government moves to free state media from previous team's political control
ABC News
Poland’s new pro-European Union government says it has changed the directors of state television, radio and the government-run news agency as it embarked on the path of freeing publicly-owned media from the political control of the previous nationalist...
WARSAW, Poland -- Poland’s new pro-European Union government said Wednesday that it had changed the directors of state television, radio and the government-run news agency as it embarked on the path of freeing publicly-owned media from the political control of the previous nationalist conservative administration.
The Cabinet of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, which took office last week, has made it a priority to restore objectivity and free expression in state media, which the previous government, under the Law and Justice party, used as aggressive propaganda tools, attacking Tusk and the opposition and spreading its euroskeptic views.
The new government's first steps toward a return to media freedom were met with protest by Law and Justice. Party leader Jarosław Kaczyński and many lawmakers occupied buildings housing the offices of state-run television TVP in the hopes that their supporters would come out to demonstrate in big numbers.
While that didn't happen, some of the Law and Justice officials still hadn't left the TVP facilities. But there was no police presence or signs of any violence.
On Tuesday, Polish lawmakers adopted a resolution presented by Tusk's government calling for the restoration of "legal order, objectivity and fairness” of TVP, Polish Radio and the PAP news agency.
