Actor says he was paid to appear as “passer-by” on Polish state TV criticising anti-government protest

An actor has claimed that he was paid to appear as a “passer-by” who was interviewed by state broadcaster TVP criticising an anti-government protest. The reporter who conducted the interview, however, denies the claim.

On Friday, the main evening news broadcast on TVP reported on regular protests that take place outside the Warsaw headquarters of the Television News Agency (TAI), which is responsible for producing TVP’s news content. They demonstrate against the “propaganda and lies” of the station, which is a government mouthpiece.

TVP’s reporter, Adrian Borecki, said that the “so-called protest” was “disturbing the peace” and “using unparliamentary language”. He added that “aggression” and “vulgarity are a trademark of this group”, whose behaviour is “nauseating”.

During the report, Borecki interviewed a man who had reportedly approached the TVP crew himself. He was shown saying that the protesters are “screaming about something that makes no sense”. In a caption, TVP described the man as “an opponent of protests disturbing the peace in the centre of the capital”.

However, after the broadcast, social media users quickly pointed out that the man looked remarkably similar to a person who has appeared as an actor in a number of TV programmes and a contestant in talent shows, as well as the dating show Naked Attraction (Magia nagości).

On Saturday, the actor himself, Krzysztof Rydzelewski, spoke to entertainment news service Plejada – part of Onet, one of Poland’s leading news websites – to confirm that he had been hired by an agency that works with TVP.

He said that he had been told to appear at a designated place and time and to deliver a specific line in front of the cameras. “I was supposed to walk down the street and talk to a journalist who would come up to me,” Rydzelewski told Plejada. “I knew what to say in front of the camera. It was a learned thing.”

Footage posted online also shows Rydzelewski grabbing a phone out of the hand of one of the protesters. Asked if he had been told to do this, Rydzelewski admitted this “was partly my initiative”.

However, in an interview with media industry news service Press, Borecki denied that he had ever paid or hired interviewees. “Please don’t spread lies. Otherwise, we’ll meet in court,” he said. There has so far been no comment from TVP or TAI.

TVP has in the past often been accused of misrepresenting interviewees. In perhaps the most famous case, during the 2020 presidential election campaign, the broadcaster presented a fashion designer, Christian Paul, praising the style of First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda.

It later transpired that the interviewee’s real name was Christian Farbaniec and that he had little background in the fashion industry. The head of TAI, Jarosław Olechowski, however, defended the validity of the interview.

The previous year, TVP had broadcast an interview with a man presented as a “journalist from Belgium” who criticised Polish opposition figure Donald Tusk for “damaging Poland” and “having Germany in his heart more than any other country” – both claims that closely fit TVP’s narrative.

Social media accounts revealed that the interviewee, Sebastien Meuwissen, in fact had worked at TVP and, though interviewed in French, was able to speak in Polish.

Olechowski again defended the decision to interview Meuwissen. He said that the journalist had previously undertaken an internship at TVP, but said it was false to suggest that this had any influence on the views he presented in the interview.

Since coming to power in 2015, the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) has brought TVP under its influence, using its programming – including news broadcasts – to praise the government and attack the opposition.

During that period, regular polling by state research agency CBOS shows that public trust in TVP has fallen to its lowest-ever levels in the post-communist period. The Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford has found that TVP is now Poles’ least-trusted major news outlet.

PiS has, however, defended its actions, arguing that shifting the profile of TVP was necessary to balance out a media landscape previously dominated by opposition-supporting outlets.

Main image credit: TVP (screenshot)

Daniel Tilles

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.