25 Years Solidarity June 4 Obama in Poland

[kaima]

Poland’s Forgotten Dissident

by Slawomir Sierakowski

WARSAW — On June 4, many of the world’s political leaders, President Obama among them, will gather in Poland to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the historic 1989 parliamentary elections, which ended in victory by the Solidarity movement. Tadeusz Mazowiecki became the first non-Communist prime minister behind the Iron Curtain, setting off change across the Communist bloc. Several months later the Berlin Wall fell, and two years later the Soviet Union collapsed.

During the celebration, much will be said about Mr. Mazowiecki’s role, and that of other Solidarity leaders like Lech Walesa. But room must also be made for Jacek Kuron, the main organizer and leader of the democratic opposition of the 1960s and ’70s, without which Solidarity would not have come into being.

Mr. Kuron began his public career in 1965, when, as a young revisionist Marxist at Warsaw University, he joined Karol Modzelewski in writing their “Open Letter to the Party,” in which they accused Communist authorities of stealing power from the workers and creating a dictatorship of the party bureaucracy. They predicted that they would be sentenced to three years in prison for this, and they were.

Inspired by their stand, some of Mr. Kuron and Mr. Modzelewski’s students, the future dissident leader Adam Michnik chief among them, organized a group known on campus as the Commandos, after their tendency to barge in on public debates and pose uncomfortable questions to party intellectuals. In March 1968 they touched off a student strike, for which Mr. Kuron and Mr. Modzelewski received additional three-year sentences. Mr. Michnik and the Commandos also landed in prison.

The two dissident professors soon won international acclaim. Asked to give his name in court, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the leader of the Paris student revolt of 1968, answered “Kuron-Modzelewski” — a surprising statement, given how steeped in Communist rhetoric the Paris ’68ers were, but such was the power of Mr. Kuron and Mr. Modzelewski’s position.

Mr. Kuron came back in time for the enormous strikes of 1976 and the subsequent crackdown on Polish workers. The repression led Mr. Kuron to coin his famous slogan, “Instead of burning committees, set up your own,” and, together with Polish intellectuals and activists, set up the Workers’ Defense Committee, known by its Polish acronym KOR, the first overt opposition organization in the entire Communist bloc.

His apartment became the committee’s headquarters, where members gathered information on persecutions and communicated it to the foreign media and to Radio Free Europe, which then broadcast it and granted protection to the persecuted.

KOR quickly built a membership of an astonishing 3,000; dissident groups’ memberships in other countries often numbered in the dozens. This was truly a state within a state. Dissidents created the Flying University, which allowed students to study Poland’s history outside government propaganda. And a significant publishing movement arose, issuing works by Hannah Arendt, George Orwell, Czeslaw Milosz and thousands of other books and texts, in print runs that reached several tens of thousands.

Mr. Kuron’s goal was to reach the workers and unite them with the intelligentsia in a joint protest. The intelligentsia possessed the theoretical knowledge, international contacts and organization, but only the workers could delegitimize the “workers’ party.” In doing so, he reached, among others, a shipyard worker named Lech Walesa.
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In August 1980, a strike broke out at the Gdansk Shipyards, organized by the KOR activist Bogdan Borusewicz, now the speaker of the Senate, who selected Mr. Walesa as the strike’s leader. Hundreds of other enterprises joined the strike. Mr. Modzelewski then coined the name “Solidarity” for Communist Poland’s first independent trade union, which soon counted 10 million members, forming the largest organized social movement in European history.

Its work done, KOR disbanded in 1981, and Mr. Kuron became an adviser to Solidarity and the best-known oppositionist after Mr. Walesa.

Later, in Mr. Mazowiecki’s government, Mr. Kuron took the difficult role of minister of labor and social policy, which was supposed to shield people from the effects of “shock therapy,” the severe neoliberal economic reforms that left millions of people without work almost overnight and that led to increasing social inequalities.

Mr. Kuron was partly responsible for that pain, having asked the economist Jeffrey Sachs to compose a reform plan, giving him one night to do so. But he was far from unaware of its consequences; in fact, he ladled out soup to the poor by day and explained the transformations Poland was undergoing on television by night. It was he, not Mr. Walesa or Mr. Mazowiecki, who became the most loved politician in Poland.

He was never elected president, however, because he was too far removed from the image of a politician. He did not want to break with opposition customs and his own modesty. He rarely if ever wore a suit. In interviews he would say, “I usually sleep in the Parliament, as indeed you can see on television.” Or: “You see, there is only room for one incompetent person in the leadership of each ministry. In my ministry that place is occupied by myself.”

Mr. Kuron died 10 years ago. In a sense, he had again become an oppositionist toward the end of his life. Somewhat neglected by his former colleagues who joined the political establishment, he warned against excessive social stratification and continued to demand justice. He urged people to be more active, and he dreamed of an educational revolution that would teach young people both nonconformism and cooperation.

For subsequent generations, his legend will be a call to rebellion, the alternative to which is accommodation, obedience and imitation. It is a message that rings true regardless of what kind of government runs the country.

Slawomir Sierakowski is a sociologist, a founder of the Krytyka Polityczna movement and the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw. This article was translated by Maria Blackwood from the Polish.

[pieter]

Ron (kaima),

This is a very excellent and informative essay. It describes the development and existance of the Polish dissident movement very well. Also the important role Jacek Kuron played in it. I don't have much to say more about it. The essay itself tells it all. And for the rest we can look up in the encyclopedia's and our own resources. I am of the age of people who are stil aware of the cold war, what communism ment, and who have experienced communist Poland. Generations after me don't know what communism means, and are little aware of nazism and fascism either. They know little about history. The real old communists are gone, so are the real nazi's and fascists. New movements emerge, new combinations of old totalitarian systems. Some extremist groups cross the border of the antithesis and use Nazi and communist ideologies and systems to form new totalitarian movements and parties. In developments in Ukraine and the Balkan we saw elements of the past. The old ideas of nationalism (Ukrainian), communism (Russian: the Sovjet symbolism and propaganda used in Eastern-Ukraine and Crimea) and nazism (ultra-nationalist groups in Western-Ukraine who gained power) are back. That is why texts, historical knowledge and information like Slawomir Sierakowski's essay 'Poland’s Forgotten Dissident' are so important. In the National Bolsjewist movement in Russia and Putin's Motherland movement you see a merger of Nationalistic and Sovjet elements in a new jacket.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacek_Kuroń

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

Kai,

The great achievement of Jacek Kuroń, Adam Michnik, Tadeusz Mazowiecki and other Polish dissidents involved in the the Workers’ Defense Committee KOR and Solidarność was the fact that they managed to built a bridge between the Polish intelligentsia and students one side and the Polish workers on the other side. One of the leaders of the Paris student revolt of 1968, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, is mentioned here. In the West the leaders of the 68 generation of Paris and Berlin didn't manage to united the students and workers for their cause. The great strength of the Polish dissident movement was the unity of workers and intellectuals, who had a shared goal of a free and democratic Poland. Polish Patriotism and Roman-Catholicism (the power of the faith, prayer, catholic Polish identity) united many of them, but there was also collaboration between Roman-Catholics, secularists, Polish social-democrats and etc. Jacek Kuroń was an atheist.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

Leszek Kołakowski



The ideas of the Polish philosopher and historian of ideas Leszek Kołakowski (23 October 1927 – 17 July 2009) had a great influence on Polish dissidents who read his work. He could have been an inspiration to the foundation of KOR and Solidarność.

In his youth, Kołakowski was a communist. In the period 1947–1966, he was a member of the Polish United Workers' Party, PZPR (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza). His intellectual promise earned him a trip to Moscow, where he saw the future and found it repulsive. He broke with Stalinism, becoming a "revisionist Marxist" advocating a humanist interpretation of Marx. One year after the 1956 Polish October ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_October ), Kołakowski published a four-part critique of Soviet-Marxist dogmas, including historical determinism ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_determinism ), in the Polish periodical Nowa Kultura. His public lecture at Warsaw University on the tenth anniversary of Polish October (Polish thaw) led to his expulsion from the Polish United Workers' Party. In the course of the 1968 Polish political crisis he lost his job at Warsaw University and was prevented from obtaining any other academic post.

He came to believe that the totalitarian cruelty of Stalinism was not an aberration, but instead a logical end product of Marxism, whose genealogy he examined in his monumental Main Currents of Marxism, his major work published in 1976–1978.

Kolakowski became increasingly fascinated by the contribution which theological assumptions make to Western, and, in particular, modern thought, and defended the role which freedom plays in the human quest for the transcendent. His Law of the Infinite Cornucopia asserts that, for any given doctrine one wants to believe, there is never a shortage of arguments by which one can support it. Nevertheless, although human fallibility implies that we ought to treat claims to infallibility with scepticism, our pursuit of the higher (such as truth and goodness) is ennobling.

Although his works were officially banned in Poland, underground copies of them influenced the opinions of the Polish intellectual opposition. His 1971 essay Theses on Hope and Hopelessness (full title : In Stalin's Countries: Theses on Hope and Despair), which suggested that self-organized social groups could gradually expand the spheres of civil society in a totalitarian state, helped to inspire the dissident movements of the 1970s that led to Solidarity and, eventually, to the collapse of Communism in Europe in 1989. In the 1980s, Kołakowski supported Solidarity by giving interviews, writing and fund-raising.

In Poland, Kołakowski is not only revered as a philosopher and historian of ideas, but also as an icon for opponents of communism. Adam Michnik has called Kołakowski "one of the most prominent creators of contemporary Polish culture".

Source: Wikipedia encyclopedia

[Jaga]

Kuron and Michnik as well as Mazowiecki are remembered in Poland, especially in my generation and these older than me.
Michnik is still a main editor of GAzeta Wyborcza, the most popular Polish newspaper. Unfortunately Michnik is probably unable to control this newspaper and it is becoming a tabloid.
Mazowiecki died not a long time ago and even Kerry was present... or briefly after.

Kuron would always be a symbol. I still remember meeting with him in 80s at my university. The university hall was full, Kuron with his usual sense of humor was explaining some difficult things. He was very influential, did many good things. His son died unexpectedly a couple of years ago, was famous for a wonderful cuisine.

Kuron himself was famous for organizing feeding places with soup, so called "Kuroniowka" for poor people. My mom always put some money to the church which was going for this soup.

[Eric]

May 31, 2014 20:58:04 GMT -7 Jaga said:

Unfortunately Michnik is probably unable to control this newspaper and it is becoming a tabloid.

I think that's the deliberate idea.  Tabloids sell better, so more money for him and the company.

[pieter]

It is a sad development. Gazeta Wyborcza was a quality newspaper. All over the west corporate interest and commercialism rules over and fades out research and quality journalism. I hate it. (As a person who works in media/press)
There must be a good balance between corporate interest and research journalism. The New York Times, The New Yorker and the Partisan Review were and are a good example of that!

[Jaga]

Eric, Pieter,

for the last 10 years the majority of the newspaper put on the cover not the main news but what they want people to believe that it is news. Too bad! There are still some reasonable newspapers, for instance Wall Street Journal, Washington Post or The New York Times, but even with these one has to be careful.

[pieter]

Adam Michnik



Adam Michnik (Polish pronunciation: [ˈadam ˈmixɲik]; born 17 October 1946 ) is a Polish historian, essayist, former dissident, public intellectual, and the editor-in-chief of Poland's largest newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. Brought up in a family of convinced communists, Michnik was one of the most relentless opponents of the communist regime. A legendary figure of the Polish anti-communist opposition, he was imprisoned, first, after the 1968 March Events, then, after the imposition of the Martial Law in 1981. Michnik also played a crucial role during the Polish Round Table Talks, as a result of which the communists conceded to call elections, which were subsequently won by Solidarity. Even though he has withdrawn from active politics he has "maintained an influential voice through journalism". He is a laureate of many awards and honors, including a Knight of the Legion of Honour and European of the Year.

Family

Adam Michnik was born in Warsaw, Poland, to a family of Jewish communists. His father, Ozjasz Szechter, was the first secretary of the Communist Party of Western Ukraine and his mother, Helena Michnik, was a historian, communist activist and children's book writer. His half brother (on his mother's side), Stefan Michnik, was a judge in the 1950s during the Stalinist period and has been accused of passing death sentences on Polish resistance movement soldiers. His half brother (on his father's side), Jerzy Michnik (b. 1929), settled in Israel after 1957, and then moved to New York.


Ozjasz Szechter, Adam Michnik's communist father.


Stefan Michnik, Stalinist judge in the 1950s

Education

While attending primary school, he was an active member of the Polish Scouting Association (ZHP), in a troop which was led by Jacek Kuroń. During secondary school, this particular Scouting troop was banned, and Adam began to participate in meetings of the Klub Krzywego Koła (Club of the Crooked Circle). After its closing in 1962, with the encouragement from Jan Józef Lipski and under Adam Schaff's protection, he founded a discussion group, "Contradiction Hunters Club" (Klub Poszukiwaczy Sprzeczności) and became associated with the left wing student opposition group, the Komandosi.
In 1964 he began studies in history at Warsaw University. A year later he was suspended because he disseminated an open letter to the members of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) among his school mates. Its authors, Jacek Kuroń and Karol Modzelewski appealed for a beginning of reforms which would repair the political system in Poland. In 1965, the PZPR forbade his texts to be printed. In 1966 he was suspended for the second time for organizing a discussion meeting with Leszek Kołakowski, who was expelled from the PZPR several weeks earlier, for criticizing its leaders. From then on he wrote under a pseudonym to several newspapers including: “Życie Gospodarcze”, “Więź”, “Literatura”.


Jacek Kuroń and Adam Michnik


September 1980. Adam Michnik in the house of Jacek Kuroń

In March 1968 he was expelled from the University for his activities during the 1968 Polish political crisis. The crisis was ignited by the ban of Kazimierz Dejmek's adaptation of Adam Mickiewicz's "Dziady" (Forefathers' Eve) in the National Theatre. The play contained many anti-Russian allusions, which were greeted with enthusiastic applause by the audience. Michnik and another student, Henryk Szlajfer, recounted the situation to a correspondent of Le Monde, "whose report was then carried on Radio Free Europe". Both Michnik and Szlajfer were expelled from the university. Upon their expulsion, students organized demonstrations, which were brutally suppressed by the riot police and "worker-squads".
Władysław Gomułka used Michnik's Jewish background to wage an anti-Semitic campaign, blaming the Jews for the crisis. Michnik was arrested and sentenced to three years imprisonment for "acts of hooliganism".
In 1969, he was released from prison under an amnesty, but he was forbidden to continue his studies. Not until the middle of the 1970s was he allowed to continue his studies of history, which he finished at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

Opposition


Members of the Workers' Defence Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników), KOR

After he was released from prison, he worked for two years as a welder at the Róża Luxemburg (Rosa Luxemburg) Industrial Plant and then, on the recommendation of Jacek Kuroń, he became private secretary to Antoni Słonimski.
In 1976–77 he lived in Paris. After he returned to Poland, he got involved in the activity of Workers' Defence Committee (KOR), which had already existed for a couple of months. It was one of the best known opposition organizations of the 1970s. He became one of the most active opposition activists and also one of the supporters of the Society for Educational Courses (Towarzystwo Kursów Naukowych).
Between 1977 and 1989, he was the editor or co-editor of underground newspapers published illegally, samizdat: "Biuletyn Informacyjny", "Zapis", "Krytyka". He was also a member of the management of one of the biggest underground publishers: NOWa.
In years 1980–1989 he was an adviser to both the Independent Self-governing trade union "Solidarity" (NSZZ "Solidarność") in the Mazovia Region and to Foundry Workers Committee of "Solidarity".


Adam Michnik, Helena Luczywo and Jacek Kuroń

When martial law was declared, in December 1981, he was at first an internee, but when he refused to sign a "loyalty oath" and assent to voluntarily leave the country, he was jailed and accused of an "attempt to overthrow socialism". He was in jail without a verdict until 1984, because the prosecutor's office prolonged the trial on purpose.
Adam Michnik demanded an end to proceedings against him or have his case dismissed. Meanwhile, he wanted to be granted the status of a political prisoner, and went on a hunger strike in jail. In 1984 he was released from jail, under an amnesty.


Members of the Workers' Defence Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników), KOR

He took part in an attempt to organize a strike in the Gdańsk shipyard. As a consequence, he was rearrested in 1985 and this time sentenced to three years imprisonment. He was released the following year again under another amnesty.

Activity since 1989

In 1988 he became an adviser of Lech Wałęsa's informal Coordination Committee, and later he became a member of the Solidarity Citizens' Committee. He took an active part in planning and preliminary negotiations for the Round Table Talks in 1989, in which he also participated. Adam Michnik inspired and collaborated with the editors of the Ulam Quarterly prior to 1989 that journal pioneered the World Wide Web in the USA.
After the Round Table Talks, Lech Wałęsa told him to organize a big Polish national daily, which was supposed to be an 'organ' of the Solidarity Citizens' Committee, before the upcoming elections. This newspaper, under the Round Table agreement, was Gazeta Wyborcza ("Election Newspaper"), because it was supposed to appear until the end of the parliamentary election in 1989. After organizing this newspaper with journalists who worked in the "Biuletyn Informacyjny", Adam Michnik became its editor-in-chief.
In the elections to the Contract Sejm on 4 June 1989 he became a member of parliament for Lech Wałęsa's Solidarity Citizens' Committee electoral register, as a candidate for the city of Bytom.
Between 12 April and 27 June 1990 Michnik, together with Bogdan Kroll – director of the central archive Archiwum Akt Nowych, and historians Andrzej Ajnenkiel and Jerzy Holzer, had access to the archives of the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs (MSW). This group was called "Michnik's Committee" and was brought into being by an initiative of the historian Henryk Samsonowicz. The result of three months' work was a short official report which stated that the archives are incomplete.


Adam Michnik in 1991

Both as a member of parliament and as editor of Gazeta Wyborcza he actively supported Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki's government and his candidature in the presidential election campaign against Lech Wałęsa in 1990. After the breakup of the Citizens' Committee and Mazowiecki's failure, Michnik withdrew from his direct involvement in politics and did not run for a seat in the next parliamentary election, instead focusing on editorial and journalistic activities. Under his leadership, Gazeta Wyborcza was converted into a widely read and influential daily newspaper in Poland. On the basis of Gazeta Wyborcza assets, the Agora SA partnership came into existence. Currently (in May 2004) it is one of the biggest media concerns in Poland, administrating 11 monthly titles, the portal gazeta.pl, the outdoor advertising company AMS, and has shares in several radio stations. Adam Michnik does not have any shares in Agora and does not hold any office, other than chief editor, which is unusual in business in Poland. Michnik's shares are kept by Agora.


Adam Michnik (left) and Daniel Cohn-Bendit near the Warsaw University.

Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki in his expose in September 1989 used a term broad-stroke policy which began new so-called broad-stroke attitude to political history of the most recent past. He is proponent and advocate of this term. In Gazeta Wyborcza he used his personal influence to protect General Wojciech Jaruzelski and General Czesław Kiszczak from the social-political-judicial cleansing campaign that refers to different periods when they held party and civil functions in People's Republic of Poland (PRL). He postulated for quick and efficient adjudication of brought penal actions and to stop press battle. Crucial role played a famous interview "Pożegnanie z bronią. Adam Michnik- Czesław Kiszczak." by Agnieszka Kublik and Monika Olejnik which was published in Gazeta Wyborcza on 3 February 2001.
On 27 December 2002 Adam Michnik and Paweł Smoleński revealed the so-called "Rywin affair" which had to be explained by a specially called parliamentary select committee.
In autumn 2004 due to health problems (he suffered from tuberculosis) he resigned from active participation in editing Gazeta Wyborcza and passed his duties to editorial colleague Helena Łuczywo.
On the anniversary of the introduction of martial law, on 13 December 2005, Michnik delivered an exposition at the University of Warsaw (an article was published in the "Gazeta Wyborcza") in which he appealed to president Lech Kaczyński for statutory abolition for those who were responsible for the martial law. The article was a response to information about instituting an inquiry by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) against General Jaruzelski. Michnik appealed about abolition even earlier – in 1991 (during an exposition at the Faculty of Law at University of Maria Curie-Skłodowska in Lublin (UMCS), "Gazeta w Lublinie" 11 December 1991) and also in 2001 in the article "Stan wojenny 20 lat później" ("Gazeta Wyborcza" 12 December 2001).


Jacek Kuroń and Adam Michnik

He is a member of the Association of Polish Writers and the Council on Foreign Relations.

[pieter]

Komandosi

The Komandosi ("The Commandos") was a name given to a group of left wing Polish students in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The group included prominent dissident members such as Jacek Kuroń, Karol Modzelewski, Adam Michnik, Henryk Szlajfer, Teresa Bogucka, Jan Gross, Jakub Kariński, Barbara Toruńczyk, Irena Grudzieńska, Jan Lityński, and other students, who became known in the anti-communist opposition movement.


Karol Modzelewski


Henryk Szlajfer

The name originated due to the way that the students interrupted and came to control classroom discussions at the University of Warsaw on topics which were politically charged from the point of view of standard communist propaganda of the era. During the March '68 events many of the members of the group were arrested and tried on trumped up charges by the communist authorities. Michnik was sentenced to three years in prison, Kuroń three and a half, and Lityński and others to two and a half.


Teresa Bogucka


Jan Gross


Barbara Torunczyk and Adam Michnik


Irena Grudzińska-Gross


Jan Lityński

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komandosi_(grupa_opozycyjna)

[pieter]

Jun 1, 2014 13:13:51 GMT -7 Jaga said:

Eric, Pieter,

for the last 10 years the majority of the newspaper put on the cover not the main news but what they want people to believe that it is news. Too bad! There are still some reasonable newspapers, for instance Wall Street Journal, Washington Post or The New York Times, but even with these one has to be careful.

Jaga,

I am a mainly New York oriented European, because that is our Dutch focuspoint in America, that is where we feel at home intellectually, culturally and maybe also in the sense of mentality, media and press. But You are very correct the Washington Post is an excellent newspaper too. Occasionally I read the W.P. But staying for 12 days in New York in June 2008 I bought the New York Times every day in the early morning and carried the paper with me through New York, and continued reading in various parks during the day. I read a lot in those NYT newspapers during those days. About American politics, culture, European news, cinema and indepth essays.

When I was back in the Netherlands in Arnhem, in the morning I missed my NYT. The New York ritual, coffee at Starbucks, my take away outmeal at my Latin diners on Broadway and my fresh New Yorj Times newspaper from the newsstand at the same Broadway. The NYT had good articles about fine art, theatre, cinema and lifestyle next to serious news. I don't know how the NYT is today, I only read the limited online idition every now and then. In Europe (the Netherlands) if I bought and buy a foreign magazine or newspaper occasionally, I mostly buy the Economist (British), Foreign Affairs (American), Newsweek (American), or the German Der Spiegel, Die Welt, Die Zeit or the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The Germans stil have an exellent press. I also like German television WDR/ARD/ZDF. The Flemish VRT public television has qualtiy research journalism too, and the Flemish 'De Morgen' magazine is a quality medium. Like you have witnessed on this Forum I try to read a lot over here from your postings if they are quality content (and like always states as importent correctly; the source. What is the source of the information. So that you can check the info). In foreign English language media I am very limited to Polish news (Polish Radio/Warsaw Voice), the BBC, Sky News UK (distributed worldwide by Fox International Channels), CNN, Fox news, Kyv Post, RT (for the Russian perspective), Al Jazeera (Arab), Al Arabiya (Arab, Press TV (Iranian), Al Manar TV (Pro-Iranian/Pro Assad/Hezbollah perspective), I24 (Israeli), Haaretz (Israeli) and Euronews.

In the Netherlands we have a few real qualtiy, research journalism, critical independent press/media sources left. The public broadcasters VPRO, NPS, KRO (liberal/progressive secular Roman-Catholic) and sometimes the 'socialist' VARA. The VARA has quality programs, but I don't like colored leftwing (simplistic) news, like I dislike the Dutch rightwing chanals WNL (English: "Awakened Netherlands") and the blunt and satirical PowNews. The VPRO is known for producing and broadcasting quality (and sometimes avant-garde) programmes, documentaries and films, the target audience of the VPRO could be considered as mostly highly educated and creative people (e.g. artists, designers, scientists). VPRO often collaborates with other broadcasting organisations such as WDR, the BBC, and Arte.









My favority Dutch quality news documentry/reportage program is Tegenlicht (Backlight) of the VPRO. I watch the Dutch version every week. The English version is available via their Website and youtube chanal. (see links under here) I am a VPRO member and receive their TV guide, because I want to support them. They are one of the few real research journalist and culture and documentry minded broadcast corporations that are left. For the rest there is a lot of stupid, small minded hollow entertainment on many Dutch public and commercial tv chanals. Thhe VPRO is liberal/progressive, but fair. Equally critical towards leftwing and rightwing political parties and politicians. They go further where other Dutch or foreign media stop. They are honest and sometimes show conservative or nationalistic/patriotic views without judgement or leftwing commentary. They can be objective, and they for sure are critical towards left- and rightwing and centrist politicians. And they are cosmopolitan. I watched an exellent series about a writing journalist who made a tv program about Russia. Another Dutch writer made documentry series about South-Africa and Indonesia. I like those kind of approaches. Next to that the VPRO brought and brings good American HBO series, like 'Six feet under', 'Carnivàle', 'Band of Brothers' (= about an American group of Gi's during the second world war in Western-Europe; the story follows them from Normandy to Germany) and the American crime drama television series Breaking Bad (not HBO, but produced Vince Gilligan). VPRO is a Transatlantic Anglo-Saxon oriented Dutch cultural-political broadcast corporation. I like it's international, open minded approach.



Backlight

VPRO‘s weekly, 50-minute, Future Affairs- program, balances on the edge of storytelling and journalism. It focuses on our globalized world in which societies, economies and cultures seek a new equilibrium. Backlight aims to grasp the quintessence of prominent trends and developments.

The series shifts between two modes of communication: it provides in-depth analysis of new developments by leading intellectuals, visionaries and mavericks – the architects of change. At the same time, it applies daring cinematic techniques, capturing the effects these changes have on the daily lives of the real world‘s citizens.

Backlight is appreciated by an inspired community that seeks a deeper understanding of worldwide developments and policymakers alike. Backlight targets a worldwide audience. The program has been bought by broadcasters from Canada to Korea and from Finland to Argentina.

26 x 50'' airing on Sunday 21:00 in The Netherlands.
Series editors: Henneke Hagen, Frank Wiering

tegenlicht.vpro.nl/backlight.html www.youtube.com/user/VPROBacklight

[pieter]

Jaga,

Maybe Poland with it's heritage of an intelligentsia of Dissidents, Samizdat underground press, university student circles, philosophic tradition, excellent writers (often with a political or society critical element), and country of professors, teachers, trainers and couches, academics and scientific researchers, could be an important country for 'New Press and media development'. How to reinvent 'Research journalism', how to guarantee the existence and continuation of an objective, critical, fair and honest quality press. The independent press and media in the world are threatened by and from two sides; the commercial corporate world ( a few large news corporations who control the media and have a news monopoly) and from the other side large states and their state monopolies. (Russia, China, but also Turkey and other states)

Poland commemorates this week the fact that Poland is free and democratic for 25 years now. Maybe it is important to realize during this celebrations the importance of the 'Trias Politica' and the fact that the Separation of powers has to be monitored and checked over and over again by critical journalists from the written press (newspapers and magazines, newsblogs), radio, tv, Facebook pages and Twitter messages. The press has an important role in checking and monitoring the political class on all levels (local, regional, national, federal, international), they are the fourth or fifth power. They must report about Fraud, corruption, abuse of power, political manipulation and indoctrination, unfair treatment of people, violations of laws and human rights abuses, dangerous political and economical developments, corporate arrogance and greed, subgroups in our society, education, science, the financial markets, art and culture, history (to put present developments in perspective), technology, innovation, conflicts in the world, diplomatic processes (negotiations/peace processes), about what is going on in our societies.

If we lose our critical, objective, research journalism, we lose the checks and balances in our political system. We will lose the quality in our political process and the democratic character of our democratic system. Because the press needs not only to the check the politicians and the rulers of the government, but they also have an educative role in showing the voters, the electorate what choice they have. They have to examen the party programs, to show statistics, polls, what happens behind the curtain of campaigns. In my opinion the written press and the audio-visual media have an important role in our democratic society and system.

Cheers,
Pieter

Links:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers

[pieter]

What is journalism?

Journalism in the 20th century



Journalism in the 20th century was marked by a growing sense of professionalism. There were four important factors in this trend: (1) the increasing organization of working journalists, Journalism in the 20th century was marked by a growing sense of professionalism, (2) specialized education for journalism, (3) a growing literature dealing with the history, problems, and techniques of mass communication, and (4) an increasing sense of social responsibility on the part of journalists.

Journalism is a method of inquiry and literary style that aims to provide a service to the public by the dissemination and analysis of news and other information. Journalistic integrity is based on the principles of truth, disclosure, and editorial independence. Journalistic mediums can vary diversely, from print publishing to electronic broadcasting, and from newspaper to television channels, as well as to the web, and to digital technology.

In modern society, the news media is the chief purveyor of information and opinion about public affairs. Journalism, however, is not always confined to the news media or to news itself, as journalistic communication may find its way into broader forms of expression, including literature and cinema. In some nations, the news media is still controlled by government intervention, and is not fully an independent body. (Think about China, Russia, Egypt, Turkey and Iran)

In a democratic society, however, access to free information plays a central role in creating a system of checks and balance, and in distributing power equally between governments, businesses, individuals, and other social entities. Access to verifiable information gathered by independent media sources, which adhere to journalistic standards, can also be of service to ordinary citizens, by empowering them with the tools they need in order to participate in the political process.

The role and status of journalism, along with that of the mass media, has undergone profound changes over the last two decades with the advent of digital technology and publication of news on the Internet. This has created a shift in the consumption of print media channels, as people increasingly consume news through e-readers, smartphones, and other electronic devices, challenging news organizations to fully monetize their digital wing, as well as improvise on the context in which they publish news in print. Notably, in the American media landscape, newsrooms have reduced their staff and coverage as traditional media channels, such as television, grapple with declining audiences. For instance, between 2007 and 2012, CNN edited its story packages into nearly half of their original time length.

This compactness in coverage has been linked to broad audience attrition, as a large majority of respondents in recent studies show changing preferences in news consumption. The digital era has also ushered in a new kind of journalism in which ordinary citizens play a greater role in the process of newsmaking, with the rise of citizen journalism being possible through the Internet. Using video camera equipped smartphones, active citizens are now enabled to record footage of news events and upload them onto channels like YouTube, which is often discovered and used by mainstream news media outlets. Meanwhile, easy access to news from a variety of online sources, like blogs and other social media, has resulted in readers being able to pick from a wider choice of official and unofficial sources, instead of only from traditional media organizations.

The growing complexity of news reporting and newspaper operation required a great deal of specialized training. Editors also found that in-depth reporting of special types of news, such as political affairs, business, economics, and science, often demanded reporters with education in these areas. The advent of motion pictures, radio, and television as news media called for an ever-increasing battery of new skills and techniques in gathering and presenting the news. By the 1950s, courses in journalism or communications were commonly offered in colleges.

By the late 20th century, studies showed that journalists as a group were generally idealistic about their role in bringing the facts to the public in an impartial manner. Various societies of journalists issued statements of ethics, of which that of the American Society of Newspaper Editors is perhaps best known.

Present-day journalism

Although the core of journalism has always been the news, the latter word has acquired so many secondary meanings that the term “hard news” gained currency to distinguish items of definite news value from others of marginal significance. This was largely a consequence of the advent of radio and television reporting, which brought news bulletins to the public with a speed that the press could not hope to match. To hold their audience, newspapers provided increasing quantities of interpretive material—articles on the background of the news, personality sketches, and columns of timely comment by writers skilled in presenting opinion in readable form. By the mid-1960s most newspapers, particularly evening and Sunday editions, were relying heavily on magazine techniques, except for their content of “hard news,” where the traditional rule of objectivity still applied. Newsmagazines in much of their reporting were blending news with editorial comment.

The 20th century saw a renewal of the strictures and limitations imposed upon the press by governments. In countries with communist governments, the press was owned by the state, and journalists and editors were government employees. Under such a system, the prime function of the press to report the news was combined with the duty to uphold and support the national ideology and the declared goals of the state. This led to a situation in which the positive achievements of communist states were stressed by the media, while their failings were underreported or ignored. This rigorous censorship pervaded journalism in communist countries.

Whereas traditional journalism originated during a time when information was scarce and thus highly in demand, 21st-century journalism faced an information-saturated market in which news had been, to some degree, devalued by its overabundance. Advances such as satellite and digital technology and the Internet made information more plentiful and accessible and thereby stiffened journalistic competition. To meet increasing consumer demand for up-to-the-minute and highly detailed reporting, media outlets developed alternative channels of dissemination, such as online distribution, electronic mailings, and direct interaction with the public via forums, blogs, user-generated content, and social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Celebrity journalism, focusing on the lives of well-known individuals, also became more popular as weekly tabloid-style magazines such as Us Weekly increased in both number and sensationalistic content.

Abstract

The history of journalism in elective democracies around the world has been described as the emergence of a professional identity of journalists with claims to an exclusive role and status in society, based on and at times fiercely defended by their occupational ideology. Although the conceptualization of journalism as a professional ideology can be traced throughout the literature on journalism studies, scholars tend to take the building blocks of such an ideology more or less for granted. The ideal-typical values of journalism’s ideology are operationalized and investigated in terms of how these values are challenged or changed in the context of current cultural and technological developments in schools of journalism and in debates and journalist trainings. It is argued that multiculturalism and multimedia are similar and poignant examples of such developments. If the professional identity of journalists can be seen as kept together by the social cement of an occupational ideology of journalism, the analysis of such education, debates and articles about the role and place of journalism shows how journalism in the self-perceptions of journalists has come to mean much more than its modernist bias of telling people what they need to know.

Poland

At present, standards accepted by professional associations emphasize objectivity in reporting, but the culture of journalism in Poland remains highly partisan. Public media coverage preceding October 2011 parliamentary elections was reasonably balanced, especially when compared with the 2010 presidential election period. In February, the government had amended its freshly adopted electoral code to level the playing field for all candidates by banning paid campaign advertisements on radio and television, as well as posters or billboards exceeding two square meters in size. After the amendment was contested by deputies from PiS, the Constitutional Tribunal agreed that the ban would violate principles of free speech, and it was withdrawn.



Polish print media and radio outlets are predominantly private and highly diversified, and a number of national dailies have been launched in recent years. According to the European Journalism Centre, German and other foreign owners control approximately 80 percent of the Polish media market. The only major domestic competitor is Agora SA, with an 18.3 percent share. The public television broadcaster TVP and its four channels remain a major source of information for most citizens. It has been reported that only one in three households actually pays the mandatory subscription fee collected from radio and television owners to support public broadcasting. Draft changes to the fee system under consideration at the end of 2011 would assume that any household with electricity has a television, radio, or computer and must pay the subscription fee. Since 2009, many media companies have been forced to cut spending and lay off employees due to financial constraints. Poland’s television advertising market remained weak in 2011, but digital advertising continued to grow and bring income to media companies.





Roughly 65 percent of the population had regular internet access in 2011, and the medium is not restricted by the government. However, a 2011 case against blogger-journalist Łukasz Kasprowicz raised new questions about freedom of expression in the Polish blogosphere. In January, a court found Kasprowicz guilty of defaming the mayor of Mosina, a town near Poznań in western Poland. He was ordered to perform 300 hours of community service, apologize to the mayor in writing, and pay a fine of 500 złoty ($170) to the Polish Red Cross. The court also banned Kasprowicz from working as a journalist for one year. In June, a higher court reversed the January decision and acquitted Kasprowicz. The judge in that ruling noted that public figures must tolerate even harsh criticism from citizen journalists, provided the opinions involve the public activities of a public official and are expressed to serve a public interest.


Polish blogger-journalist Łukasz Kasprowicz

In July 2011 Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski initiated a defamation case against the online versions of the tabloid Fakt and the business daily Puls Biznesu. Articles about Sikorski in December 2010 had elicited offensive and anti-Semitic remarks from some readers, which remained visible in the comments sections of both sites for several months. In May, the publications apologized to Sikorski and removed the comments that directly pertained to him and his wife, but Sikorski continued to press his case for 20,000 złoty ($6,750), arguing that editors should have removed the comments much earlier. Sikorski also wanted such websites to require users to provide identifying information to administrators before commenting.

Present

The installation of democracy in Poland in 1990 was, for obvious reasons, the main reason for the introduction of freedom of expression and press in Poland. The freedom of speech was first written into Polish law in 1992 through the Little Constitution, the predecessor to today’s Polish Constitution, which was effective 1997. The Little Constitution declared Poland as a parliamentary system. This freedom of speech clause allowed Poles “to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”

As shown in the introduction, Poland is rated very highly for its free speech. It is not simply enough to have a right written into law; it must to upheld and practiced. If Poland writes that it country allows free speech, it must be prepared to hear and see speech it doesn’t like. If it only expects positive and supportive speech, Poland is aligning itself with beliefs of its communist days.

One of the most controversial laws Poland upholds is banning offenses towards religious feelings or sentiment. The law is most readily used against artists, who thrive under freedom of expression. The protection of the majority’s Catholic believes stemmed from censorship against its attempted press. Poland has no official religious, but its population is mostly homogeneously Catholic. Article 196 of the Penal code reads, “anyone found guilty of offending religious feelings through public calumny of an object or place of worship is liable to a fine, restriction of liberty or a maximum two year prison sentence.[m]"
International standards on freedom of expression are violated with this act, because of how vague “offending feelings” is and how sweeping the legal standing on this can be, it is dangerous to free speech.

Recent events have led to landmark judgments surrounding this law. In 2007, musician Adam Darski was arrested by Polish police for offending Catholics at a show. During his concert, he described the Catholic Church as “the most murderous cult on the planet,” after tearing a Bible. In 2012, the Polish Supreme Court was examining his intent, and ultimately concluded it was artistic expression, not purposeful offense. The supreme court was asked how Darski could be “offending religious feelings” if most of Behemoth’s fans expected theatrical sacrilege, since he’d been preforming similar acts for two years previously, building a reputation around this. [n] The fact that the case was dismissed displays a growing realization and commitment to free speech.


Musician Adam Darski

Another instance of offending religious feeling comes through in the 2012 fining for Polish pop star Dorota Rabczewska for discrediting the bible. According the Associated Press in a 2009 interview, “Rabczewska said she doubted the Christian holy book because it’s hard to believe in something that was written by someone drunk on wine and smoking some herbs.” [o] At first it can be questioned why she did not face jail time, like Darski, but when the fact that she is listed as one of the ten most influential women in the country by CNN, it become clear her fame caused her to have a lesser charge. This continued dispute over expressive and opinionated speech shows that Poland still must adapt to be completely open to free speech.


Polish pop star Dorota Rabczewska

Sources:
freespeechfreepress.wordpress.com/europe/poland/
Encyclopedia Britannica
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standards

[Jaga]

Kai, Pieter,

as usual, you were ahead of me with information about June 4th visit. There will be many presidents in Poland, among them pres. Obama, Poroshenko, new Ukrainian presidents etc....

Pieter, thanks for reminding Michnik, Kuron and how did they look when they were young !

[pieter]

You are welcome Jaga. You have had the privilege and fortune to have met some of them. These were special times with special people, who did special, extraordinary things.