5 ms·

FWIW I'm an American living in Poland since 2 years ago, though I'm participating only as a spectator and I don't have a political horse in this race. This whol

FWIW I'm an American living in Poland since 2 years ago, though I'm participating only as a spectator and I don't have a political horse in this race. This whole saga seems like a bit of a tempest in a teapot from where I sit. As of a few days ago, a certain minority political faction is suddenly very interested in high-sounding principles and will talk your ear off about freedom of speech and young-threatened-Democracy with a capital-D etc. Probably there is a lot of this downthread. Without making any claims about this issue itself, I will observe three interesting metacharacteristics of the situation: 0) This same suddenly-principled faction has a long record of happily supporting soft-and-hard censorship whenever it suits their politics and gleefully condemning other people's speech if they don't like it. A nonzero fraction (but of course not all) of the condemnation here comes from the literal Polish Communist Party (and their modern, slightly-rebranded allies), aka the same people who brought us 50 years of totalitarian oppression and censorship-enforced-by-secret-police-abductions. This strikes me as pretty rich. 1) Most ordinary Polish people know about this topic, but many don't find it anywhere near as scandalous as this breathless NYT article would have you believe. As far as I can tell this is not high on the list of pressing political issues for many regular people (despite a domestic Polish and foreign media blitz to the contrary). 2) State media is widely regarded as a running joke, known for its comically-hokey stories such as "Polish citizenry rejoices as Potassium exports rise 12%" (made up example but catches the tone). There are literally a small handful of state-funded radio and TV stations and arguably a semiaffiliated newspaper or two, in varying states of cheesiness. Meanwhile there are gallons and gallons of antigovernment media, most of which is overwhelmingly more competent than the allegedly State-controlled media, with super-slick hollywood production values and content which is precision-engineered to be engaging. In light of this disparity I find claims about "all encompassing State propaganda mind control" to be rather dubious.

loh 6y ago
For my own curiosity, what are some of the Polish anti-government media outlets?
- avn2109 6y ago
  You could get a sense of it from wyborcza.pl, which is both the largest/most-prestigious newspaper in the country and quite strongly opposed to the current Government. Or polityka.pl, which is kinda like the New Yorker magazine of Poland, insofar as it is a weekly upper-middlebrow witty news magazine with giant circulation, unabashedly opposing the country's executive. If you want a TV show or videos on the internet you could have a look at fakty.tvn24.pl. But really there are tons, these are just off the top of my head and the list goes on for miles.
- b0rsuk 6y ago
  oko.press (has some english-language articles; investigative journalism), onet.pl (tabloid) , tvn24.pl (TV station), krytykapolityczna.pl (openly leftist so unpopular in Poland)
adimitrov 6y ago
Just so you know why I downvoted you: - your comment is not at all unpolitical, even though you claim to not "have a political horse in this race." Your dismissal of the opposition to PiS as hypocritical, small, and a "certain minority" is deeply political. - saying "evil people X" say Y thing, therefore Y thing is false/unworthy/etc. is a fallacy. Saying that (former) communists are upset about the removal of the song has no bearing on whether this is an important story or not - all Polish people I know (my in laws and Polish friends) know about this and think it's a big deal. Yes, they live in Poland. I don't have a clear overview of all Polish newspapers, but those that I saw definitely ran the story prominently. It's also been big is Polish social media. This story made waves in Poland. - criticizing all Polish state media in a general fashion when this story is a bout Trójka specifically is absolutely fallacious. Trójka has not praised Potassium exports or had similar stories; even the NYT piece says that Trójka has been a special case among Polish media as far back as 1982. - there can be no doubt about the current ruling party's intention of trying to subsume all relevant media under its control. Examples [1][2][3]. Lots of pieces have been written about this, and it's nothing new. It's not even going on in secret. Your tone is not apolitical with respect to the situation in Poland, and the content of your writing isn't either. Claiming you're apolitical is disingenuous. That's why I think you deserved the downvote. Me, I'm against PiS, and similar movements throughout Europe. I believe they are harmful to their countries, and to the European project. [1]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/31/polands-government-is-systematically-silencing-opposition-voices-gazeta-wyborcza-adam-michnik-pis-kaczynski-kurski-tvp/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/31/polands-government-is-s... [2]: https://www.publicmediaalliance.org/threats-to-media-independence-continue-across-central-europe/ https://www.publicmediaalliance.org/threats-to-media-indepen... [3]: https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/04/21/polands-ruling-law-and-justice-party-is-doing-lasting-damage https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/04/21/polands-ruling-l...
- avn2109 6y ago
  That's a mostly fair and accurate summary of the "this is a big scandal" position imho. Quite representative of people holding that position in all aspects including tone, length, and content. FWIW I am not a PiS supporter, have never voted for them, and likely will not vote for them in the forseeable future.
msla 6y ago
> FWIW I'm an American living in Poland since 2 years ago, Your ESL turn of phrase says otherwise.
- pipework 6y ago
  > Your ESL turn of phrase says otherwise. It's perfectly normal for English-speakers to adopt the speech patterns and phrases of those they're around. There's nothing to learn by attempting to refute their origin.
- dang 6y ago
  You can't attack another user like that. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here.
  - msla 6y ago
    I honestly didn't intend it as an insult.
    - dang 6y ago
      I believe you. But this is a case where https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20burden%20disambiguate&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... comes into play.
me_me_me 6y ago
I have left poland in my late teens, never really bothered with state media to catch-up after that. A fiend of mine send me some clips recently and hand to heart I was 100% sure it was a voice over. It ridiculous to the point of parody. I have no idea who could possibly believe in any of it (unless braindamaged). But how could you be such a spineless waste of air to vomit such s* on the air and call yourself a journalist. That is even more shocking. We have all seen Fox News bending reality, but what happens in Polish national TV is calling black - white and white - black.

loh 6y ago

For my own curiosity, what are some of the Polish anti-government media outlets?

avn2109 6y ago
You could get a sense of it from wyborcza.pl, which is both the largest/most-prestigious newspaper in the country and quite strongly opposed to the current Government. Or polityka.pl, which is kinda like the New Yorker magazine of Poland, insofar as it is a weekly upper-middlebrow witty news magazine with giant circulation, unabashedly opposing the country's executive. If you want a TV show or videos on the internet you could have a look at fakty.tvn24.pl. But really there are tons, these are just off the top of my head and the list goes on for miles.
b0rsuk 6y ago
oko.press (has some english-language articles; investigative journalism), onet.pl (tabloid) , tvn24.pl (TV station), krytykapolityczna.pl (openly leftist so unpopular in Poland)

adimitrov 6y ago

Just so you know why I downvoted you: - your comment is not at all unpolitical, even though you claim to not "have a political horse in this race." Your dismissal of the opposition to PiS as hypocritical, small, and a "certain minority" is deeply political. - saying "evil people X" say Y thing, therefore Y thing is false/unworthy/etc. is a fallacy. Saying that (former) communists are upset about the removal of the song has no bearing on whether this is an important story or not - all Polish people I know (my in laws and Polish friends) know about this and think it's a big deal. Yes, they live in Poland. I don't have a clear overview of all Polish newspapers, but those that I saw definitely ran the story prominently. It's also been big is Polish social media. This story made waves in Poland. - criticizing all Polish state media in a general fashion when this story is a bout Trójka specifically is absolutely fallacious. Trójka has not praised Potassium exports or had similar stories; even the NYT piece says that Trójka has been a special case among Polish media as far back as 1982. - there can be no doubt about the current ruling party's intention of trying to subsume all relevant media under its control. Examples [1][2][3]. Lots of pieces have been written about this, and it's nothing new. It's not even going on in secret. Your tone is not apolitical with respect to the situation in Poland, and the content of your writing isn't either. Claiming you're apolitical is disingenuous. That's why I think you deserved the downvote. Me, I'm against PiS, and similar movements throughout Europe. I believe they are harmful to their countries, and to the European project. [1]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/31/polands-government-is-systematically-silencing-opposition-voices-gazeta-wyborcza-adam-michnik-pis-kaczynski-kurski-tvp/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/31/polands-government-is-s... [2]: https://www.publicmediaalliance.org/threats-to-media-independence-continue-across-central-europe/ https://www.publicmediaalliance.org/threats-to-media-indepen... [3]: https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/04/21/polands-ruling-law-and-justice-party-is-doing-lasting-damage https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/04/21/polands-ruling-l...

avn2109 6y ago
That's a mostly fair and accurate summary of the "this is a big scandal" position imho. Quite representative of people holding that position in all aspects including tone, length, and content. FWIW I am not a PiS supporter, have never voted for them, and likely will not vote for them in the forseeable future.

msla 6y ago

> FWIW I'm an American living in Poland since 2 years ago, Your ESL turn of phrase says otherwise.

pipework 6y ago
> Your ESL turn of phrase says otherwise. It's perfectly normal for English-speakers to adopt the speech patterns and phrases of those they're around. There's nothing to learn by attempting to refute their origin.
dang 6y ago
You can't attack another user like that. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here.
- msla 6y ago
  I honestly didn't intend it as an insult.
  - dang 6y ago
    I believe you. But this is a case where https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20burden%20disambiguate&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... comes into play.

me_me_me 6y ago

I have left poland in my late teens, never really bothered with state media to catch-up after that. A fiend of mine send me some clips recently and hand to heart I was 100% sure it was a voice over. It ridiculous to the point of parody. I have no idea who could possibly believe in any of it (unless braindamaged). But how could you be such a spineless waste of air to vomit such s* on the air and call yourself a journalist. That is even more shocking. We have all seen Fox News bending reality, but what happens in Polish national TV is calling black - white and white - black.