Despite TVN24 TV License OK, Poland Media Freedom Pressured
After a warning from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) about a “press freedom state of emergency” in Poland, the hardline government that’s challenging the European Union over rule of law extended a broadcasting license for news channel TVN24, but is still squeezing media outlets.
The station is owned by the US network Discovery and was targeted, critics said, because of its critical coverage of President Andrzej Duda’s administration that’s been locked in battles with the EU.
A spokesman for the European Commission said that risks to media freedom remain and asked Poland’s Parliament to be clearer over whether TVN24 had the right to continue operating, said the news agency Reuters.
"We will continue to monitor the developments very closely ... We expect (EU) member states to ensure that their policies and legislation do not have any negative impact on their commitment to ensure a free, independent and diverse media ecosystem,” a commission statement said.
The case also increased tension with the United States because of Discovery’s ownership and came as the EU and media freedom groups said they feared Poland was, like Hungary, trying to stifle independent media.
The Parliament still could, despite the license extension, revise the law on foreign ownership of media broadcasting outlets as the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party wants, which would force Discovery to sell more than half its media business there.
“The fact that the Polish media regulator, KRRIT, is using the resolution to challenge current media ownership rules is concerning and undermines the democratic legislative process itself,” TVN also said.
The overarching concern though is whether the increasingly authoritarian Polish government is really trying to deter any dissenting view, and will adopt more measures to muzzle the media.
In mid-September, RSF envoys went to Warsaw and denounced moves that threatened TVN as well as what it said were arbitrary restrictions on press freedom imposed along the border with Belarus preventing journalists from covering stories about refugees wanting to cross.
Pavol Szalai, head of RSF’s EU and Balkans Desk, said at the time - before the license was extended but its fate still in the air - that the government’s objective was clear: “weaken and then take control of the biggest source of independent news in this major EU country … attacking TVN means attacking press freedom in Europe.”
After the extension, Szalai remained wary and told Blueprint for Free Speech that Poland’s media regular still “questioned in its declaration the legality of TVN's ownership structure and thereby supported the uncertainty about future licensing of the TVN channels.”
He added: “The project of Repolonization - whose objective is a hostile takeover of private media - is ongoing despite having been suspended in the case of TVN. PolskaPress, bought by the government-controlled petrol giant PKN Orlen, is now separating itself from journalists critical of the government and changing the editorial line of this biggest network of regional press in Poland.”
The EU has been reluctant to get too tough on Poland even after the TVN case and police confiscating the computer equipment from Roman Imielski, Deputy Editor of the liberal Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper earlier in October.
He said a police raid took place without a warrant and "strikes against the fundamental right to journalistic secrecy in a democracy,” adding in an article later that the editors said it was done “to intimidate the journalists,” with police denying the accusation.
Laurens C. Hueting, Senior Advocacy Officer for the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPM) told Blueprint there is an “illiberal democracy playbook at work” in Poland, the government wanting to weaken and destabilize independent outlets through “A campaign of administrative harassment and abuse of regulatory processes.”
He added that, “The EU institutions are a bit underpowered, in the sense that some tools are missing from the box to be able to intervene in media policy at the moment,” but that recently-announced plans for an unspecified EU Media Freedom Act are welcome, the group having called for that.
“It has to be said that the EU, especially the Commission, has also not been particularly assertive in using the tools and powers they already have at their disposal … some Commissioners (such as Vera Jourová) have been very strong in their engagement with Poland, but others are sending more mixed signals and overall, it does not exactly create an impression of strength.”