Poland has recorded the third largest decline in trust in the media in Europe over the last year, an international study has found. Among major news outlets, state broadcaster TVP, which is used as a mouthpiece by the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, remains Poles’ least trusted source.
In its latest Digital News Report, published today, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the University of Oxford conducted surveys on how news is consumed in 46 countries covering half the world’s population.
While last year it recorded an increase in trust in the media across most countries amid the pandemic, this year saw the resumption of a longer-term decline. In Europe, the largest annual percentage-point drops in trust were recorded in Romania (-9), Croatia (-7) and Poland (-6).
Among news outlets in Poland, the most trusted were private radio stations RMF (51%) and Zet (47%) and liberal broadcaster TVN (47%). The least trusted were TVP (24%), conservative newspaper Gazeta Polska (27%) and tabloid Super Express (29%). The ranking was similar to last year’s.
The report found that in Poland overall 42% have trust in the news. That matched exactly the global average and was the highest of any eastern European country surveyed. The highest level of trust was found in Finland (69%) and the lowest in the United States and Slovakia (both 26%).
However, Poland has the highest proportion of people from any country who think that their media is polarised, with 54% of Poles saying that news organisations in their market are politically far apart.
Indifference to news and widespread perception of political biases are two of the main reasons for low trust
-In 🇺🇸 those who self-identify on the right are more than twice as likely to distrust the news compared with those on the left.
-In 🇫🇮 we see almost no difference pic.twitter.com/dKjihRzKyR— Reuters Institute (@risj_oxford) June 15, 2022
The Reuters Institute's findings match those of other monitoring groups. In the annual World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Poland has fallen from its highest ever position of 18th in 2015, the year PiS came to power, to its lowest ever position of 66th this year.
RSF notes that under PiS state-owned media have been "transformed into government propaganda mouthpieces". A regular survey by Polish state pollster CBOS also shows that public opinion of TVP has fallen sharply since 2015 to reach its lowest ever recorded level.
Following Poland's 2020 presidential elections, OSCE observers noted that TVP’s “biased, xenophobic and antisemitic” reporting - in which it accused the main opposition candidate of seeking to “fulfil Jewish demands" - had “undermined voters’ ability to make an informed choice”.
In its country report on Poland, the Reuters Institute also notes that private media are coming under pressure. Last year, state oil giant Orlen completed the purchase of most major regional newspapers in Poland, leading to the departure of 15 out of 16 editors, who were often replaced with figures hired from pro-government outlets.
The report also highlights the government's attempt to pass a law that would have forced TVN's American owners to sell their majority stake. It was eventually vetoed by President Andrzej Duda in December.
PiS denies that it has reduced media freedom and claims that, in fact, by promoting conservative voices in a landscape previously dominated by left-wing and liberal outlets, it has increased balance and diversity. It also argues that ending foreign ownership of Polish media is in the national interest.
Main image credit: Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
