Polish state-owned oil firm PKN Orlen has completed its controversial purchase of Polska Press – a media firm that owns hundreds of local newspapers and websites – from its German owner, Verlagsgruppe Passau.
Orlen has justified the takeover as part of a “new business strategy” that will “strengthen sales and marketing” by giving the firm access to the 17.4 million users of the media group’s websites.
Critics, however, fear that it is a way for the government to gain influence over local media. Figures from the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party have celebrated the takeover for advancing their aim to “repolonise” foreign-owned media.
Ahead of today’s announcement, the publishing group’s editor-in-chief promised to continue producing “independent, honest and free journalism” as long as he remains in his position.
Orlen’s agreement to take over Polska Press was announced in December, following rumours of the deal in October. Earlier this month, Poland’s competition authority, UOKIK, gave its approval for the takeover to go ahead.
Today, Polska Press confirmed that the purchase – worth a reported 120 million zloty (€26.5 million) – was finalised yesterday and that the media group now belongs to Orlen, reports Business Insider Polska.
As a result, Orlen takes ownership of 20 out of Poland’s 24 regional daily newspapers as well as a further 120 regional weeklies. Its new portfolio also includes hundreds of websites, including the various local news portals under the NaszeMiasto (OurTown) brand.
State-owned firms in Poland have long been under government influence, though observers have noted an increase in political appointments under PiS. Orlen’s CEO, Daniel Obajtek, previously served as the mayor of a small rural community but has seen his career accelerate through various state-linked entities since PiS came to power in 2015.
On Friday – in a full-page editorial entitled “In the name of principles and freedom” – Polska Press’s editor-in-chief, Paweł Fąfara, assured that the group’s outlets would “continue our mission as long as we can – even if for some reason that only lasts a month or even a day”.
“The [previous] owners – a family business from Bavaria – have always respected complete journalistic independence,” wrote Fąfara, and “we will not deviate from the principles…[of] independent, honest and free journalism.”
“Today I will disappoint those PiS politicians and their allied groups who in their aspirations expect that from now on there will be no inconvenient or critical material about them in our titles,” wrote Fąfara.
Marek Twaróg, editor-in-chief of one of Polska Press’s local titles, Dziennik Zachodni, told website Wirtualne Media that he supported the message.
“The appeal was addressed to the readers so that they would be clear what we think in editorial offices,” he said, also noting that there had been no pressure from owners in the past.
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However, experts are sceptical about whether in practice editors will be able to stand up to their new owner. “This purchase was made precisely to do the opposite,” Wiesław Godzic, a professor of media studies at Warsaw’s SWPS University told Wirtualne Media.
“These authorities do not know what a free press is; they think that [media] should only be for informing about positive actions taken by the authorities,” he continued. “The new owner will probably throw out the old management in those editorial offices that he does not have trust in.”
Speaking to Notes from Poland last month, Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European studies at the University of Oxford, said that Orlen’s media takeover was “straight from Orbán’s playbook” as a way for “authoritarian” governments to reduce media freedom.
Main image credit: Damian Sochacki/Pixabay
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
