Thread by @danieltilles1

[Thread] Bias of state TV news laid bare in analysis by Society of Journalists of coverage in the 2 weeks before EU elections:
- 69 reports on PiS (68 positive)
- 33 on European Coalition (all negative)
- 2 on Confederation
- 0 on Kukiz, Spring, Together polityka.pl/tygodnikpolity…

2. The main evening broadcast would cover the same story over and over again to emphasises an issue.

A secret recording of an opposition MP admitting his party wanted to be 'progressive' on LGBT rights but had to hide this from rural voters was shown on 7 successive evenings

3. Meanwhile other, inconvenient, stories were ignored.

A major documentary on clerical pedophilia, which was a huge story for a couple of weeks, was not mentioned on state news, who instead showed stats relating to pedophilia among other professions and attacked the opposition

3. Other 'news' segments (sometimes two in the same broadcast) repeatedly attacked the opposition

4. Coverage of PiS campaign events was used to advertise the party's election pledges.

Coverage of an opposition event used grainy footage from PiS's Twitter account

5. Misleading graphics were used to flatter the government and its achievements.

State news interviewed a 'Belgian journalist' criticising Tusk in French. But he was actually an intern at TVP based in Warsaw who speaks Polish

6. Audio and visual manipulation was used to flatter PiS and to show the opposition negatively

7. The above (and more) is contained in the report published in Polish and English on the website of the Society of Journalists: towarzystwodziennikarskie.pl

8. This blatant campaigning on behalf of the ruling party violates public media's statutory obligation to be neutral, the Radio and Television Act, and the Electoral Code, according to the Society of Journalists oko.press/czy-wiadomosci…

9. Supporters of the govt will tend to respond to this by saying 2 things:
a) Previous governments also used public media for their own benefit
b) Public media are now 'bringing more diversity' to the media landscape, which was previously dominated by liberal and leftist outlets

10. In fact:
a) Yes, that did happen to some extent, but never to the extremes currently seen (as is shown by qualitative and quantitative evidence)
b) Even if that's true, it's not the job of public, state-funded media to do so (and in fact violates their statute)

11. Most English news sites about Poland (Poland In, The First News, Radio Poland) are also run by the Polish state.

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