It's not adequate for Canie, Rachon and the Republic tv to halt taking the taste of life distant from us

The fresh parliamentary majority wants to dismantle TVP and others as shortly as possible public media as a tool of the written propaganda. It is hard to be surprised, what has happened in the last 8 years in public media, and especially in the press and “information” of TVP, exceeded all standards and all limits of shame.

At the same time, removing the current squad from TVP and Polish Radio is not adequate to make good public media. Although today's democratic side, including the minimum-reasoning part of the right, wants first of all the “Canoes, Rachon” and the tv landing organization to halt “taking distant the taste of life from us”, the accomplishment of this goal will only rise a truly crucial question: how to wisely plan public media in the mediate of the second decade of the 21st century.

Concrete crushing

Of course, it's not gonna be easy to take the Cani and Rachons off the transmitter. The Law and Justice Department has done a large deal to concreteize its influence in public media. For this purpose, a fresh body was established in 2016: the National Media Council. In accordance with the applicable Act, it appoints and cancels the boards and supervisory boards of public media: TVP, Polish Radio and Polish Press Agency. The Council mostly duplicates the function of a constitutional body, the National Broadcasting Council.

As in the case of many institutions created by the Law and Justice, the constitutionality of the RCN's action is besides controversial. At the end of 2015, PiS adopted the alleged tiny media bill, which took KRRiTv the power to appoint the board and president of state radio and television, giving it to the Minister of the Treasury. A tiny media bill was challenged before the Constitutional Court. In December 2016, Andrzej Rzeplinski's CEO issued a ruling stating that the provisions completely excluding KRRiTv from the choice of the TVP and PR authorities are unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, however, PiS created the RMG, transferring to it the powers that a tiny media bill gave the minister the treasure. The governing arrangement so concluded that the judgement of the Constitutional Tribunal was without object, since it refers to the no longer existing legal reality. Although it should be unconstitutional for the common sense to take distant certain competences of the KRRiTv, whether they have been sent to the minister or to the RMB, the judgement of the Constitutional Tribunal has never been enforced and the Council inactive decides on the casting of public media.

Most three-fifths have PiS representatives there: Krzysztof Czabański, co-operating with Kaczyński since the early 1990s, Piotr Babinetz, PiS MP since 2007 and Joanna Lichocka – a right-wing journalist, co-scenario of respective Smolensk documentary films, sitting as MP of PiS in the Sejm since 2015. Their word of office does not expire until 2028.

However, a legislative amendment would be essential to shorten and execute the conviction of the Constitutional Tribunal. And this 1 will most likely be vetoed by president Duda. If he wants to think about going back to national politics, he cannot introduce himself to an electorate as individual who has ‘give Tusk’ TVP.

There were 2 ideas in the Democratic camp, what to do with TVPBy bypassing the president's veto. The first speaks of the annulment of the resolution of the Sejm of the 2022 resolutions, selecting the present, as indicated by the Sejm of the members of the RMG – the others, as indicated by the Sejm's opposition, are nominated by the President.

This way, however, will trigger legal controversy. president Kaczyński will most likely say that the resolution is so contrary to the legal order that it is invalid from the vending machine, and the cancelled members of the RMN will not accept it either. We will have a dispute over who is and who is not a associate of the Council and who has the right to decide on the cast of public media boards.

The second way discussed is to put public media in liquidation by the Minister of Culture. In this situation, the tasks of the directors of TVP, Polish Radio and PAP would be taken over by the liquidators appointed by the minister, The RMN would not affect their choice. The PiS, however, warned this move. On Sunday evening, in the last hours of his office, Piotr Gliński sent an amendment to the TVP Statute to the RMG, stating that in the event of liquidation of the company, the liquidator function is the current board. Which would make it impossible to usage the liquidation procedure to remove the current crew from TVP. The RMN accepted without surprise by a 3:2 majority. The question of whether the court will registry it, or whether it will not consider that it oversteps the competence of the owner – the state treasure represented by the Minister of Culture.

Three Public Media Questions

The fresh majority has a clear political mandate to change the media, will shortly gain control of the executive power, and has better legal facilities than the Law and Justices, which gives it stronger cards in possible litigations if the written public media squad decides to defend its positions in courts. So I think that sooner or later the democratic camp will get the media back. And then a truly interesting discussion begins.

Because we can't just go back to what was in public media before being taken over by the Law and Justice at the turn of 2015 and 2016. Even before the Law and Justice, the public media operated in a way that became increasingly anachronistic, incapable to keep up with changes in audience habits, abandoning radio and tv for fresh media.

Not just the fresh government, but we, as a society, must besides answer 3 questions about public media. First: what precisely do we request them for today, what content should they produce and emit? After 8 years, we know for certain how we don't want them to look, but we can replace the striped media Newsprogramme Let's go!, fresh Year's Eve in Zakopane and Crowns of Kings?

Secondly, we request to consider how to guarantee that tv is truly independent of politicians, in practice its legal and financial security. Thirdly, it is essential to invent public media to be found in digital reality, where linear tv is increasingly becoming a surviving fossil.

Do we even request public media?

In consequence to the first of these questions, it can mostly be heard that public media are essential as a origin of information and space for pluralistic public debate, a tool for education, creation and dissemination of culture.

Such answers can rise legitimate skepticism in Poland today. The public media has long failed to execute these functions, especially as regards information and public debate. In a situation where public media, with TVP at the head, turned into a tool of blunt propaganda of 1 party, private and civilian media were effectively looking at the hands of power, exposing its scandals, providing citizens with the information essential to consciously make civic choices. They were the ones who kept the democratic agora alive.

However, public media is needed as a pillar of the media system, free from marketplace turmoil, capable of spending resources on addressing topics that are besides low-loud or besides costly for private media. To warrant this, it is not adequate to support the implementation of missionary content in private or civic media – although this should surely be called in Poland.

In the media scenery characterised by excessive information, manipulation and misinformation, public media should besides play the function of the most reliable origin of information and its analysis. What would that mean in practice? In a situation where the right is shouting out that the European treaties are eliminating the Polish statehood, Donald Tusk warns against “the naive Euro-enthusiasm” and Leszek Miller compares the rule of unanimity in the European Council votes to veto liberal, public media should be the place where a citizen can find the most reliable and efficient information about what is actually going on in the improvement of the treaties, and to make up his head who is right.

Of course, this would require a complete reset of the current public media and the reconstruction of a practically zero social contract connecting them to citizens – but erstwhile more and more media decision to identity positions, specified a mission would justify the sense of public media.

In an perfect scenario, they could become a space for debate, which is increasingly disappearing in Poland today. Identifiable bubbles do not want to talk to each other, politicians barely go to interviews with media considered to be friendly enough. If the public sphere is not to fall further apart on islands that are far from each other, a gathering place is needed. A place where a free marketer collides with the hard questions of a leftist journalist, and a organization politician Together with a well-prepared neoliberal journalist.

Public media are besides needed as a window to the world, in a situation where media cuts funds for abroad correspondence, and the planet outside Poland is mainly written on occasion of major crises or breakthrough elections. On the another hand, they should besides supply content related to local political life.

In designing public media after the Law and Justice, it is so essential to consider how to make them a reliable, trustworthy origin of information and analysis, allowing citizens to participate in democratic processes, how to effectively oblige them to inform about the planet and Poland outside Warsaw. This is simply a much more crucial challenge than ensuring adequate representation of all possible views in Poland. It is more crucial for public media to be the place people open first erstwhile they wonder what the fresh power proposal is truly about.

Culinary function

Public media has long not served their function only with respect to democracy but besides to culture. It's hard to point out an crucial show, paper or performance that would trigger a crucial discussion after the TVP issue. Again, this niche was effectively filled by private actors. The most artisticly interesting, causing the widest discussions of the series were created in fresh years not on television, but on VOD platforms. And even though any of these productions seemed to be made for the public broadcaster – e.g. serial Great water, combining political and historical reflection with a catastrophic spectacle and household history. Public tv should produce akin content, capable of chaining viewers to screens coming from very different starting points, forming a wide variety of reception communities, combining popularity with advanced cultural capital.

There are besides formats and species where private or sector-based actors will not replace public media. For example, short movie forms that so far cannot be found either on private VOD platforms – where documentaries are doing alternatively well – or in cinemas where documentary full metro dominates.

Public media besides have a function to play in the fresh audiovisual reality, which is characterised by the excessive content available. In this situation, media serving as curators, selecting content and offering interesting paths to the audience. Public media, utilizing their rich archives, are especially predestined to execute specified a function, especially with respect to the Polish audiovisual heritage, to talk loudly.

However, the main tool of this function must no longer be a tv or radio frame. reasoning about the future of public media, it is worth returning to the proposal Citizens' Pact for Public Media of 2016. Its authors rightly call for the construction of the Public Media Portal as their 3rd pillar, equivalent to TVP and Polish Radio. This portal would be “the most crucial tool for making available Polish cultural resources, dissemination of archival resources of Polish Radio, Polish tv and another cultural institutions in Poland”. Today, after 7 years, we would even say that this portal should be the mark interface through which fresh public media will communicate with the recipients, the place where audio and video content appears, from where you can stream tv channels.

Is the fresh majority brave adequate to turn off the manual controls?

The Pact besides raises another key theme: guaranteeing independency for public media. It is not adequate to disarm the Scripted National Media Council, but the mechanisms that will separate public media from politicians will strengthen the voice of citizens.

The Pact proposed, among another things, a strategy of environmental recommendations – from associations representing journalists, audiovisual artists, etc. – to positions on public media boards. It is worth considering, as is strengthening the function of media workers – after removing them earlier clerical propaganda – who should be able to reject the boss if he tries to turn public media into a propaganda tool.

It is besides essential to supply independent sources of backing to media, both from the whims of politicians and the market, which means a universal charge, a public media tax. At first, like any tax, it will be resisting, but if the media carry out their tasks and renew the agreement with the public, it can be accepted.

In order to avoid wasting these funds, the rules should clearly specify what part of the budget the public media should spend on culture, education, publishing, etc.

Of course, all of this very preliminary ideas, the invention of media after the Law and Justice will require long-term discussion. The question remains whether the fresh majority will defy the temptation to turn on manual control and will yet give the public media the essential space to operate.