Collage: Ilka Gartner
By Ilka Gartner
Shortly before Christmas 2023, it is cold in Warsaw and the sky is cloudy all day – it is a moment of upheaval in Poland: a crowd has gathered in front of the building of the public broadcaster TVP on Woronicza Street. They say they want to defend democracy and media freedom. And they are all members of the right-wing populist Law and Justice Party – PiS for short. A few of the demonstrators enter the building, and the media later reports on the “occupation of the TVP building.”
One of those inside the building is PiS party member Sebastian Łukaszewicz – he films himself and posts everything on X. In one of his videos, he and a small group try to enter an office that is being blocked by another man. Loud shouts in Polish can be heard, and the camera tilts to the side in some places. Above the video is written:
“The thugs hired by Sienkiewicz [then Minister of Culture under Donald Tusk] are trying to take over the office of President Matyszkowicz [TVP President until 2023]. We are together with the MPs on Woronicza Street.”
Several videos and images are circulating online that are supposed to prove alleged violence against PiS politicians. In retrospect, this could not be proven.
In those days and months almost two years ago, Poland saw a change of government and with it a change in the idea of how the media system should be structured. Under Donald Tusk’s new government, the previously state-controlled broadcasting system was restructured. Today, Poland ranks 31 out of 180 in the press freedom index. According to the Reuters Digital News Report, trust in the news is below 50%. Within this context, this article asks, what is the media policy situation like after two years of Tusk’s government, and how are young people in Poland and young journalists responding to the changing media system?
Days of uncertainty
As Helena reads the news and looks at her cell phone on December 20, 2023, everything seems very confusing to her. She doesn’t quite understand what has happened. Helena is a journalism student at SWPS University in Warsaw and has been working at TVP since 2024. She is a young journalist, just 20 years old. Helena is not her real name; she prefers to remain anonymous. She occasionally posts online about her working days at TVP. Here she researches news topics and produces television reports. She says that on that day in December 2023, different live videos were broadcast from two different rooms in the same building. It was frightening and confusing to see it all.
Polskie Radio (PR) and Telewizja Polska (TVP) are part of Poland’s public broadcasting system. Shortly after December 20, 2023, a memorable day for the media world, the TVP channel is taken off the air. Numerous videos can be found on YouTube with titles such as “The last day of TVP Info under PiS control” or “Shutdown of the TVP Info signal.” After a few days, it is switched back on – in a new building with completely new staff.
Political influence – media as an instrument of power
“Of course, things are a little different in the editorial office now,” says Helena today. “It’s less right-wing – all the material and the interviews we conduct. A lot has changed.” At work in the editorial office, restructuring at TVP is no longer an issue. Everyone is happy to have a job. Helena thinks that without the whole restructuring process, she would probably never have ended up at TVP:
“It’s actually a new job for almost everyone in the editorial office. Almost everyone has been replaced. It’s like a new start.”
A new start for public broadcasting in Poland. The shutdown and restructuring of television was part of the media reform of the new government under Donald Tusk. At the beginning of December 2023, he and his Civic Platform (PO) party replaced the PiS after eight years in power. In a parliamentary resolution, the government decided to “restore the impartiality of the Polish media.” Part of this restoration involved the dismissal and replacement of senior management at TVP, Polish Radio, and the PAP news agency. With reference to the adopted resolution, the Ministry of Culture in Warsaw announced that all CEOs and supervisory board members would be affected by this dismissal. This is because public broadcasting in Poland had been transformed into state broadcasting during the PiS government.
This is also confirmed by several studies, such as the Media Freedom Rapid Response Report from 2023: “The public media has been completely transformed into a propaganda tool for the ruling PiS and serves not only to promote the party’s interests, but also to attack and denigrate its critics.” It also states that the PiS government has made it more difficult for private media to access funding, thereby undermining independent journalism.
Media policy escalation
After almost two days of downtime, the new TVP news program 19:30 went on air on December 22, 2023, with a new presenter, a new name, and new—still secret—editorial offices. Editor-in-chief Pawel Pluska said in an interview with tagesschau:
“We will give people the unvarnished truth instead of the propaganda soup that has been served up until now.”
On December 22, 2023, the media policy dispute in Poland escalated: then-President Andrzej Duda, who was close to the PiS party, vetoed the budget law that provided funding for public media. He said that the temporary shutdown and rapid replacement of public broadcasters was an attack on the rule of law.
In response, just a few days later, the government initiated the formal liquidation of the three state media outlets TVP, PR, and PAP. Above all, this step made it possible to secure funding for public broadcasting through other channels, bypassing the Polish president. However, it also represents a legally controversial measure and, politically, one to which PiS MPs responded by occupying the TVP building.
To this day, TVP is officially in liquidation and the media policy situation remains tense. The Tusk government is repeatedly attempting to intervene with political measures. Particular focus is being placed on the National Broadcasting Council (Krajowa Rada Radiofonii i Telewizji, KRRiT), which was heavily influenced by party politics under the PiS government and whose seats are determined, among others, by the PiS-affiliated and right-wing conservative president Karol Nawrocki. On the other hand, Tusk’s policies repeatedly focus on the National Media Council (Rada Mediów Narodowych, RMN). He wants to abolish the council established by the PiS government and consolidate all powers with the KRRiT.
Since the PiS government came to power, control over the media has been clearly divided between the two councils: the KRRiT supervises private media and decides on licenses, personnel, and sanctions. The RMN acts as a supervisory board for public media.
Trust and polarisation
Many Poles, especially young people, lost trust in public broadcasting during the PiS government. Maja is one of them. Like Helena, she also wants to remain anonymous, and she is also a journalism student at SWPS University. She enjoys photography, is interested in politics, and participates in current debates. For her, it is important to stay informed and to be able to trust the information she receives. That is why she says she is careful about which media she watches and reads: “I follow private media more than public media. That’s because of the stigma, because TVP used to be a really right-wing TV station, a propaganda station.” She reads Gazeta Wyborcza in particular.
This rather liberal and left-wing newspaper is one of many offerings in Poland’s diverse media landscape. The private media in particular are largely independent and critical: Gazeta Wyborcza, the TV channel TVN, and the news site Onet.pl are just a few examples. Public broadcasting is funded by a license fee system. However, unlike in Germany, this is still organized on the basis of reception devices: those who only own a radio, for example, pay less. Many Poles do not pay this fee at all, which is why almost half of the public broadcasting budget is voted on from advertising revenue. In addition, the RMN has the possibility of influencing the programming.
20-year-old Maja comes from a politically interested family. There is a lot of discussion about politics at her dinner table, and in her seminars at university, she and her fellow students talk about current issues in Poland and around the world. “I read a lot of media and follow politics so that I can form an opinion and because I’m interested in it.” She only trusts selected media outlets and hardly ever watches the public broadcaster TVP – she prefers the private broadcaster TVN. But even here, she makes sure to always check the facts. In her circle of friends, however, she observes an even more drastic development: “My friends are even more skeptical when it comes to politics. They get most of their information from social media and trust TikTok.”
Social media as a source of information
Many young people in Poland feel the same way as Maja and her friends. In 2023, around 80% of TVP viewers were over 50 years old. And according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report, for the first time in history, television and social media are neck and neck when it comes to which medium the Polish population uses to get information. The younger generations are likely to play a major role in this.
This is also confirmed by the 2022 study “Facebook as a source of political information in Poland”: The youngest media users between the ages of 18 and 25 in particular obtain political information most frequently from social networks. Around 35% in this age group follow political news several times a day via social media, with a further 36% doing so daily.
According to the study, Facebook plays the leading role in this: almost every young adult (92.5%) reads political news there. This is followed by YouTube with 53% and Instagram with 35%. The fact that Facebook in particular is used so heavily can be explained primarily by its general popularity in Polish society. By way of comparison, the trend in Germany is similar. According to a study by the Bertelsmann Foundation from 2025, the majority of young people here also get their political information from social media – around 75%.
Who still trusts the media?
And although social media, for example, is playing an increasingly important role in information gathering, trust in the media has been rising slightly again since Donald Tusk took office. The Digital News Report writes of a 47% trust in the news among society as a whole. According to a study commissioned by the Polish press agency PAP, trust in public news rose slightly to 35% in 2025, while distrust fell to just under 50%.
“The people who watch us every day trust us to give them the best and latest information”: Trust is also an important issue for Helena in the TVP editorial office. She is certain that she and her colleagues do their best every day to produce truthful and trustworthy news. Helena is aware that she has a responsibility to society and the media landscape.
“I think that we in television have a major influence on opinion-forming in society. Because we are such a large medium and so many people watch us.“
Not only is trust in the media increasing slightly under the Tusk government, but independence is also growing again. This is also confirmed by another Media Freedom Rapid Response Report from 2024: ”The situation of media freedom in Poland has improved significantly over the past year, with the independence of public media increasing markedly.” And pressure on the private media has also decreased this year. However, the report also notes that although the media no longer function as a “propaganda tool” for the PiS party, they are neither “completely objective” nor “reliably depoliticized.”
“Safe by law”
As a budding journalist, this is precisely the point that Maja struggles with when considering her professional future. For her, it is clear that what happened under the PiS government could happen again. And if the newly elected government under Donald Tusk can dismiss the entire management of the public broadcaster, perhaps the next government could do the same. “There are rapid and major changes in politics. And I don’t think we have a stable government,” she says. In May of this year, Karol Nawrocki, an independent candidate nominated by the PiS party, won the presidential election. And in current polls, the PiS party is once again in the lead. “I don’t know if I want to stay here. I don’t see the point of working as a journalist in Poland.”
“Well, journalists need to be sure that they can tell the truth and that no one will harm them,” says Helena. When she thinks about everyday life in her editorial office, she feels safe. She has never been attacked while filming on the street, for example. But what she wants is more long-term security: “In Poland, the law is not very clear for journalists. It doesn’t say exactly what journalists are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. That’s why I think this law should be changed so that we can feel safe, safe under the law.”
What Helena describes is more than a personal wish. It is an expression of stability, legal clarity, and trust in her work and the media world. The history of recent years has shown how quickly changes in power can lead to upheavals in media policy. Two years after the change of government, Poland finds itself between a new beginning and uncertainty in terms of media policy. The reforms of the Tusk government have primarily changed public broadcasting, but have not definitively depoliticized it. Young journalists like Helena and Maja look to their future with hope, but also with skepticism. In an increasingly polarized country where each new government can reshape the media system, one question remains: How independent can Poland’s media be?
This article was first published on: https://de.ejo-online.eu/ The original article is available here: https://de.ejo-online.eu/internationales/zwischen-einfluss-und-reform-zwei-jahre-medienpolitischer-wandel-in-polen-aus-der-perspektive-junger-medienschaffender
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