WARSAW, Poland — It’s 7:30 in the evening in Warsaw, and public news broadcaster TVP Info is about to broadcast live to millions of viewers across Poland. Producers in a crowded control room scurry in and out, sometimes stopping to peer through a narrow window into a studio where the host reads from a teleprompter.

Everyone looks a little nervous, for at least two reasons: Nearly all of them are new hires, and this is a temporary studio while the police clear the station’s downtown Warsaw headquarters of the last remnants of the old government.

“The former leadership are refusing to give up our headquarters and up until recently were refusing to leave the building, so we’re here in this old sports newsroom on the edge of town,” says TVP Info director Pawel Pluska, who has been on the job for less than a month.

“We’re lacking desks, computers, and we’re having problems sending and receiving transmissions, but we’re figuring it out,” he says with a shrug.

After eight years of government under the far-right nationalist Law and Justice party, Polish voters turned up in record numbers in a historic October election that heralded a new, liberal government under the leadership of Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

After being sworn-in in December, Tusk’s new government immediately moved to retake the state-funded TVP. Under Law and Justice, the broadcaster had been transformed into a far-right propaganda machine, jeopardizing European Union funding to the country for violating the EU’s democracy standards.

  • fubo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    43·
    9 months ago

    Every time I read the name “Donald Tusk” I imagine a walrus in Donald Duck’s sailor suit.

    Sure is a better image than the Donald we got over here.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    61·
    9 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Under Law and Justice, the broadcaster had been transformed into a far-right propaganda machine, jeopardizing European Union funding to the country for violating the EU’s democracy standards.

    The final broadcast of the old regime on that day shows a visibly shaken host telling viewers the signal for TVP is going to be abruptly shut off for the first time in Polish history and that the entire leadership had been fired.

    The broadcaster went off the air for nine straight days as the old and new leadership of the country faced off and as Law and Justice parliament members refused to leave TVP Info’s downtown headquarters.

    The current showdown eventually led President Andrzej Duda, a Law and Justice ally, to veto the budget for the broadcaster, forcing the Tusk government to declare TVP bankrupt and starting a liquidation process.

    On one evening, the program carried an investigative story revealing that commentators used by TVP under the previous government were paid lucrative sums to parrot ruling party propaganda bullet points.

    He points to how the station blew out its schedule to broadcast a live vote of no-confidence in the Tusk government’s new culture minister for the changes that were made to TVP.

    The original article contains 1,215 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 84%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!