Poland's new government deprograms its once far-right public media
Poland's new government deprograms its once far-right public media
Good, now Hungary.
Let me be a downer, even if a similar change of government would be possible in Hungary, the "public media" is privately owned, and there is most likely a qualified majority required to even touch its funding. That means that even in the extremely unlikely event that the current government would not get elected, they would still own government media, and the state would still be forced to fund it.
Most of Hungary is owned by three families at this point. Universities, infrastructure, key economic players, everything from all telecommunications companies through McDonald's to airports, power plants, universities, hotels...
Fidesz being in opposition would barely change anything.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Under Law and Justice, the broadcaster had been transformed into a far-right propaganda machine, jeopardizing European Union funding to the country for violating the EU's democracy standards.
The final broadcast of the old regime on that day shows a visibly shaken host telling viewers the signal for TVP is going to be abruptly shut off for the first time in Polish history and that the entire leadership had been fired.
The broadcaster went off the air for nine straight days as the old and new leadership of the country faced off and as Law and Justice parliament members refused to leave TVP Info's downtown headquarters.
The current showdown eventually led President Andrzej Duda, a Law and Justice ally, to veto the budget for the broadcaster, forcing the Tusk government to declare TVP bankrupt and starting a liquidation process.
On one evening, the program carried an investigative story revealing that commentators used by TVP under the previous government were paid lucrative sums to parrot ruling party propaganda bullet points.
He points to how the station blew out its schedule to broadcast a live vote of no-confidence in the Tusk government's new culture minister for the changes that were made to TVP.
The original article contains 1,215 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 84%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
The European Union cut off more than $100 billion in funding to Poland as part of its dispute with the previous government, funds that began to be reinstated once voters elected the new, liberal government committed to doing away with Law and Justice's changes.
It's always baffling to read how much money the EU sends out in funding - not just to EU states, but in general to support EU values even outside of the EU.
Cutting off 100 billion in funding is certainly noteworthy.
Very interesting article about how they were able to free the media.
I'm fairly sure this $100b funding NPR talks about is EU recovery fund which is quite massive due to extraordinary circumstances.
It went from far-right propaganda to milquetoast pro-government propaganda, which obviously is better state of things but definitely not crystal clear as pompously announced after government took control of state TV using legally dubious means.
One of the fact checking NGOs published quite nice analysis of current state of things today if anyone is curious (link to machine translated version):
Life imitates art.