“Poland has continued to fall in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranking since 2016”, is alarmed the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborczanoting that Warsaw fell two more places in 2022, rising to 66e ranking of the NGO’s ranking unveiled on May 3.
“The 66e place is historically the worst that Poland has ever occupied”, regret the newspaper. “We fell into the category of countries ‘problems’, which also includes some countries in Africa (Niger, Ghana, Kenya, Zambia, Congo), Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Laos) and Latin America (Panama, Ecuador).”
In 2021, Poland had already fallen two places in the ranking following in particular the takeover of the private group Polska Press by the oil consortium Orlen, holding 20 of the 24 regional press titles.
After taking power in 2015, the national-conservatives of the PiS quickly transformed public broadcasting into a propaganda channel and never stopped wanting “repoloniser” the media, often owned by foreign companies. The NGO writes:
“In certain ‘illiberal democracies’, the repression of the independent press is a factor of intense polarization. In Poland, for example, the authorities have consolidated the control of public broadcasting and their strategy of ‘repolonisation’ of private media.”
At the end of 2021, the Polish President, Andrzej Duda, had on the edge vetoed a law directly threatening the TVN group – owned by the American Discovery – which owns a very influential continuous news channel in Poland.
This new Polish fall, RSF explains it by a hindered access “unjustified” journalists wishing to cover the border area with Belarus since the migration episode orchestrated by Minsk.
The article points out that within the European Union, only Hungary, Bulgaria and Greece are ranked lower than Poland this year. France, 26e, moved up eight places. Norway ranks first in the ranking, North Korea last.