Polish billionaire offers to help left-wing magazine after Trump cuts funding

Feb 3, 2025 | Business, Media, Politics

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Polish billionaire Rafał Brzoska has offered to help left-wing current affairs magazine Krytyka Polityczna after its US funding was suspended by the new Trump administration. Brzoska says that, although Krytyka Polityczna regularly criticises him and his logistics firm, InPost, sustaining media pluralism is vital.

Meanwhile, a number of other Polish media outlets and NGOs – including those dealing with issues relating to migration and LGBT+ rights – have also seen US funds frozen after Donald Trump’s return to the White House.


Last Thursday, Krytyka Polityczna’s editor-in-chief, Agnieszka Wiśniewska, announced that, after Trump’s decision to suspend US foreign aid for 90 days, the magazine had received an email from a collaborating organisation saying a grant they receive for a project on supporting independent media had been suspended.

Wiśniewska noted that the Stanisław Brzozowski Association, which publishes Krytyka Polityczna, is financed in large part by public grants from both Poland and abroad. “Without these funds, we would not be able to operate,” she added, before appealing to readers to donate.

“The support of individual donors is important to us, because, as we can see, Trump can suddenly stop the grants,” she wrote. “We cannot suddenly fail to fulfil the obligations we have towards authors or translators. We can’t write to anyone: ‘Sorry, Trump stopped supporting us, so you won’t get paid for the work you did.'”

Wirtualne Media, a Polish news website, notes that, according to the Stanisław Brzozowski Association’s most recent annual financial report, in 2023 almost 94% of its revenue of 9.23 million zloty (€2.18 million, $2.23 million) came from grants.

 

Krytyka Polityczna was among the media organisations to leave X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, last year, with Wiśniewska saying it had become “a space for spreading conspiracy theories, hate and disinformation”.

However, after last week’s Krytyka Polityczna post about losing US funds was shared by a user on X, a Polish journalist asked Brzoska if he would support the magazine “in this difficult situation”.

In response, the billionaire wrote on the platform that he “asks everyone to join me and make a joint collection for Krytyka Polityczna so that its noble work of fighting bloodthirsty capitalism can continue after the funds from the US government have dried up”.

He then added: “But seriously, I will gladly help if necessary and in return I expect – as before – uncompromising criticism, because, you [Krytyka Polityczna] are completely wrong, but pluralism in the media is seriously important.”

Krytyka Polityczna has published a number of negative texts about Brzoska, including one last year calling him a “dangerous evangeliser of ultraliberalism” and another accusing him of cosying up to the far right.

Brzoska founded InPost in 2006 and has built it into one of Europe’s largest delivery firms, with operations in the UK, Spain and France, among other countries. Last year, Forbes magazine ranked him as the 14th richest person in Poland, with an estimated fortune of 3.71 billion zloty (€877 million, $898 million).

Meanwhile, after an anonymous right-wing account on X shared the news that Krytyka Polityczna‘s US funding had been suspended, Musk – who has been tasked by Trump with dramatically cutting federal spending – himself replied, writing simply “Cześć”, which means “Hi” in Polish.

Wirtualne Media reports that Trump’s decision to suspend foreign aid has also hit some small local media outlets in Poland. The Polish Institute of Reportage, for example, runs a scheme offering small grants to such outlets that is funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

That money has now been suspended, and the institute will have to withdraw some grants already promised to small newsrooms. Meanwhile, Musk announced today that Trump has agreed for USAID to be “shut down” entirely.

“This is a difficult situation for us; we have to inform people that we are suspending grants, we have to withdraw from contracts, we will not pay the money,” said Olga Gitkiewicz, the Institute of Reportage’s head of projects. “This will be a huge disappointment for them. [And all] because one person decided so.”

Last week, the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (HFPC), a prominent NGO based in Warsaw, told news website OKO.press that it has had to suspend two projects that were being funded by USAID.

“The Trump memorandum will particularly affect organisations dealing with migration, which in a country like Poland, adds to an ongoing crisis,” said HFPC’s president, Maciej Nowicki. Poland has one of the EU’s highest levels of immigration and has been facing an irregular migration crisis on its eastern border.

“There are organisations that have lost 70-80% of their budget, they are in a desperate situation,” added Nowicki.

Meanwhile, LGBT+ rights groups are also facing difficulties. Campaign Against Homophobia (KPH), a prominent organisation, told OKO.press that it had previously been spending $100,000 a year that came, through intermediary organisations, from the US Department of Labor.

KPH had planned to spend a further $75,000 this year from the same source on, among other things, a campaign to support the introduction of same-sex civil partnerships in Poland. But “from one day to the next we lost [all that money]”, said Mirka Makuchowska, KPH’s director.


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: US Department of Agriculture/Flickr (under CC BY 2.0)

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