The National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT), a state regulator, has issued a large fine to a leading private radio station for publishing “disinformation” that was “contrary to the Polish national interest” because it suggested that Ukraine and the US had lost trust in Poland.
The station in question, Radio Zet, denies the accusation and can appeal against the fine. It is part of a media group whose outlets are often critical of the government while the head of the KRRiT, Maciej Świrski, was appointed by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party’s majority in parliament.
Przew Maciej Świrski podjął decyzję o ukaraniu Spółki Eurozet Radio za dezinformowanie opinii publicznej o okolicznościach przejazdu prezydenta Ukrainy przez terytorium Polski-narusz. art.18 urt. – Radio Zet 22.12.2022 r. serwis informacyjny o godz. 9:00. https://t.co/zcTCm02CJn
— KRRiT (@KRRiT__) August 14, 2023
This morning, the KRRiT announced that Świrski had fined Radio Zet 476,000 zloty (€107,200) for “broadcasting a message disinforming the public about the circumstances of the transit of the president of Ukraine through the territory of Poland…on 22 December 2022”.
On that day, Radio Zet had reported that Volodymyr Zelensky – who was on his way to meet Joe Biden in Washington for the Ukrainian president’s first overseas trip since Russia’s invasion ten months earlier – had travelled through Poland without the knowledge of the Polish security services.
That was because, claimed the station’s correspondent, Mariusz Gierszewski, the Ukrainians and Americans had lost faith in Poland after an incident in which a grenade launcher gifted by a Ukrainian official to the Polish chief of police accidentally exploded in the latter’s Warsaw office.
Amerykanie przewieźli Zełenskiego w Polsce. Nie zwrócili się o pomoc do polskich służb | Wiadomości Radio ZET https://t.co/pNY9SbpfSK
— Tomasz Lis (@lis_tomasz) December 22, 2022
At the time, Radio Zet’s claims were denied by the spokesman for Poland’s security services, Stanisław Żaryn, who said they were “calculated to disparage the structures responsible for the security of Poland”.
Now the KRRiT has decided that the station’s reporting violated Poland’s broadcasting law, which stipulates that “broadcasts may not promote activities contrary to the law, the Polish national interest, or attitudes and views contrary to morality and social good”.
Świrski revealed that Żaryn had informed him that the claims broadcast by Radio Zet were incorrect and “an attempt to use false information to disparage the Polish state”. The interior ministry also told Świrski that the station did not contact them for comment or to verify its information ahead of broadcast.
In an interview with conservative news website wPolityce, Świrski said that the “false information broadcast by Radio Zet became part of the hybrid war waged by Russia and Belarus against Poland” with the aim of “undermining the authorities” and “ridiculing Polish actions”.
NASZ WYWIAD. Szef KRRiTV @Maciej_Swirski o karze dla Radia Zet. KULISY SPRAWY. "Fałszywy przekaz wzbudził zaniepokojenie społeczne" https://t.co/0AINbNIsYV
— wPolityce.pl (@wPolityce_pl) August 14, 2023
Radio Zet has denied that its reporting was a violation of the law or that it broadcast any disinformation. It says that the information it provided was gathered in compliance with the required standards from two “reliable sources” (whose identity it cannot reveal due to their right to confidentiality).
The station also argued that the information provided to the KRRiT by Żaryn and the interior ministry was “general and evasive”. It said that there was no specific evidence that the broadcaster had violated the law. Radio Zet can now appeal in court against Świrski’s decision to issue it with a fine.
An opposition senator, Jadwiga Rotnicka, accused the regulator of double standards, noting that it had issued a large fine to Radio Zet but never punished state broadcaster TVP – which is a government mouthpiece – for its “daily hounding of the opposition, sexual minorities and social groups that PiS does not like”.
Przewodniczący KRRiT Maciej Świrski podjął decyzję o ukaraniu Radia Zet karą w wysokości 476 000 zł. A co z TVPiS i ich codziennym szczuciem na opozycję, mniejszości seksualne i grupy społeczne, których nie lubi PiS? Kiedy jakieś kary dla funkcjonariuszy mediów publicznych?
— Jadwiga Rotnicka (@JRotnicka) August 14, 2023
Świrski has often been accused of acting in the ruling party’s interests. In May, he fined another radio station, Tok FM, for “inciting hatred” by criticising a controversial school textbook authored by a former PiS politician and adopted by the education ministry.
Both Radio Zet and Tok FM are part-owned by Agora, the publisher of Gazeta Wyborcza, a leading daily newspaper that is strongly critical of PiS. A study by researchers at Oxford University this year found that Radio Zet is Poles’ third most trusted news source among major media outlets.
The April, Świrski launched proceedings against the country’s largest private TV network, TVN, which is also often critical of the government, over remarks on air by a leading Holocaust scholar, Barbara Engelking, in which she suggested that Poles did little to help Jews during the war.
State broadcaster TVP remains Poland's least trusted major news source, finds an annual study by @risj_oxford, which notes that the station provides "skewed, pro-government coverage".
The most trusted outlets are RMF FM, Polsat, Radio Zet and TVN https://t.co/nhxEaj9lS0
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 15, 2023
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Main image credit: The White House/Flickr (under public domain)
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.
