Thread by @TOrynski

You might have noticed that many pro-Ukrainian pundits and self proclaimed "Eastern Europe experts" have recently came attacking the new Polish government for their take over of public media, accusing them of destroying a valuable TV channel TVP World.

This is my take on this 🧵

So let's paint the background here. TVP was formerly a polish public broadcaster, a Polish equivalent to BBC so to speak. After PIS took power in 2015 they conducted an illegal takeover of Polish public media and turned them into an awful party propaganda tool. It needs to be /1

"recovered" and repaired so it can serve as a reliable source of as impartial information as possible. I explained this in detail in my recent piece for @WCountryVoices, you can read it here:

TVP World was one of TVP channels, an English-language /2westcountryvoices.co.uk/polish-explain…

programme aimed at foreign viewers.

TVP already had a foreign channel TVP Polonia, but this is aimed at the Polish diaspora abroad. TVP World was potrayed Polish answer to BBC World, France24, Deutche Welle or Al Jazeera: a reliable news source that shows the world events /3

from the Polish point of view. This is, in general, a good idea and I do believe Poland should indeed have such channel.

However, as usual with PiS: they come up with correct diagnoses and good ideas, but their implementations or the solutions are terrible. This was the case./4

Just like the rest of TVP Universe, TVP World was a propaganda station. Yes, @sumlenny et al. argue that it was different to the TVP aimed at Polish population (they are right here), that there was some quality journalism on there (they are also right here) and that it was /5

somehow independent from the rest of TVP (here is where they are either misinformed or outright lying).

TVP World HAD to be different from its Polish domestic market sister station, otherwise it would not work as a propaganda channel. Why? /6

Because TVP operates in a known environment. As in every country nowadays, Poland has a clear division on the population, and their bubbles are mutually exclusive. If you watch TVP, you won't believe a word that's said on other station, and if you watch other stations, you'll /7

know better than to trust TVP. Under such circumstances, TVP could pump the worst primitive government propaganda used to radicalise "their" half of the population, as they don't have to worry about viewers switching to privately owned TVN that has a lot of criticism for /8

the government.

You can't do the same when it comes to foreign audience. They are outside the Polish political scene, and might know very little about it. They won't watch blatant propaganda channel, if they can take their world news from BBC, CNN, DW, France24 or AlJazeera. /9

To keep them watching, you HAVE to provide some quality journalism and discreetly slip your message by the editorial choices, commentary bias and more subtle propaganda tactics.

Of course we have seen it before. If you watched any of @JuliaDavisNews clips, you know how /10

deranged Russian TV for the domestic market is. Nobody in the West would want to watch an English language station if it was full of Solovev's rants about how Russia should nuke Washington, pundit discussing if after conquering Poland Russia should invade Germany or /11

turn south and take over Austria, or perhaps focus on "liberating" Sweden and Finland.

Nobody would take seriously a TV station where there are cheesy tributes to the beloved Vladimir Vladimirovich or Skabayeva ranting about NATO being a bunch of satanists. Such station /12

would be watched only for LOLz or for the research purposes.

That's why Russia could not influence Western societies by translating their domestic TV 1:1 into English. They had to create a different way. And that's why Russia Today was born. Russia Today had some quality /13

reporting there. It was often valued, at least in the beginning, as a valuable counterbalance to the Western narrative, just as AlJazeera is. Only after they established a market presence, they started to swing a little into more into propaganda field, and that's why nobody /14

cried after it when it was finally banned in the West.

PiS tries to convince you that TVP World was a Polish answer to DW or BBC News. But it was, in fact, the Polish answer to Russia Today. I haven't watched much of it, but from what I did watched, it was clear that they /15

still pump the same narration as their sister stations, it is just disguised so the foreign viewer won't be straightforward aware of it. But for a Polish viewer it was pretty clear.

@sumlenny and his colleagues argue that it was invaluable source of quality Ukraine reporting/16

and a strong pro-Ukrainian voice in the world of English-speaking TV channels. That might be true, but you need to see the second layer to it: the strong pro-Ukrainian voice of TVP helped to convince its Western viewers that PIS is a strongly pro-Ukrainian, anti-Russian party./17

If you know the truth, you will remember that in the beginning of the full scale invasion, the PiS government was trying to sit on the fence. Only the overwhelming support for the Ukraine of the Polish population convinced them that they have to go with the flow, as going /18

against the vast majority of Poles and their European partners would be a political suicide.

I said it many times and can say it again: I am a harsh critic of PiS, to put it mildly, but their response to the Russia's war on Ukraine (after that initial hiccup) was one of the /19

few things they were doing right.

But we have to remember that helping Ukraine where it's the only thing to do unless you want to come out as a derranged Putin's bitch, does not mean that you are not,working for Russia in the wider picture.

PiS had been accused by many to /20

be a pro-Russian party. We have to remember that they came to power after a very strange eavesdropping affair () which, as we know today, was most likely orchestrated from Moscow.

An investigative journalist @Tomasz5ek spent years uncovering numerous /21orynski.eu/on-eavesdroppi…

Russian connections of many of the leading PiS figures and while I personally believe his conclusions are sometimes too far fetched, there is too much going on for it to be simply ignored.

Antoni Macierewicz, one of the most prominent figures in PiS did so much to destroy /22

Polish army, counterintelligence and trust between Poland and it's NATO partners, that the only two possible explanations of this can be that he is a Russian asset, or just an utter lunatic.

PiS government seemed to be also surprisingly calm when the mailbox of Dworczyk, /23

one of the most important ministers of the government was hacked and his e-mails are regularly published online in the Russian part of the Internet:

Many aspects of the Polish politics under PiS were also inline with those of Russia and other /24vk.com/poufnarozmowa

Russian-influenced countries: destruction of rule of law, conflict with European Union down to outright attempt to undermine it, strong anti-LGBT stance, attempts to curtail freedom of speech, persecution of the political opposition and so on. /25

So while I am not saying anything please do remember, that the fact that somebody is helping Ukraine in the short term does not necessary mean that they are not acting in Russia's interest long term.

But let's get back to TVP World: /26

As we established, there was some good reporting on some topics. But good reporting on Ukraine and Polish governments efforts to help Ukrainian struggle had a second layer to it. It helped to convince viewers of TVP World that only the PiS government guarantees continuing /26

Poland's strong stance against Russia. This was also supported by other materials broadcasted on TVP like propaganda paradocumentary "Reset" that was created in order to paint Donald Tusk as a Putin's supporter, an absurd notion that is at the core of PiS propaganda since /27

at least the crash of the presidential plane in Smoleńsk in 2010.

And this is why TVP World works as a propaganda tool. because if you watched it's reporting on Ukraine, compared it to the reports on Ukraine in other media channels and found it to be of high quality, then /28

what stops you from assuming that "Reset" is also a quality reporting, especially that in this case you have nothing to compare it with, as no other English language station would broadcast a documentary series about Doland Tusk and his politics? /29

And then, if you watched "Reset" and then continue to watch "Rock Rachoń", a commentary program hosted by the major PiS propagandist (I bet most of you didn't knew he used to be PiS spokesperson for several years and was only transferred to TVP from TV Republika after PIS /30

took over the public media), why would you not believe in anything he's saying?

There is another argument that foreign experts are working for TVP or being interviewed there. I clashed about that with my editor, @CulikOf, when he agreed to go there and speak about events in /31

his country. "The host of the program I am invited to is an independent journalist" he said to me and also argued that TVP Info can be seen as a reliable sources of information. "it was live, they can't censor me" he told me as well. But this is not the point. /32

Just by going there, you are helping to legitimize their message. The experts might be full of good will and provide unbiased, quality commentary, but by the mere fact they are going there, they are helping to legitimize TVP World's message. And last but not least, Rachoń is /33

our Polish Poundshop version of Solovyev. Would you go to a TV station that has Solovyev as a host of a prime time show? No? Then why are you going to TVP Info.

Last but not least: while this is true that TVP Info attracted many valuable, independent pundits, experts and /34

journalist there are two aspect to this.

1. Getting a respected journalist to host your show does not mean that your station is a quality source of information. The legendary @afneil was a face of GB News for fox's sake, and we all know what a cesspit of rightwing propaganda/35

this station is.

2. The fact that valued experts are working together with TVP info does not mean that the station shows a balanced view. I know of at least two people who were "disinvanted" or a job offer for them was withdrawn after TVP realised they are gay or when they /36

said something critical about PiS.

Last but not least: the kerfuffle with new government taking over public media in Poland is still very much ongoing. I don't know what will come out of it at the end.

I do think TVP World, as a information channel showing the news from /37

the Polish point of view can be a valuable thing.

So let's see what will come out of it after the dust settles down. if you valued TVP's reporting on Ukraine, just imagine how cool it would be to have more quality TVP reporting on Ukraine but without getting PiS bias and /38

propaganda as a part of the bundle?

And let me finish by addressing all those experts on Eastern Europe defending TVP world and denying accusations it was a propaganda channel. /39

Innitially I was just thinking it's part of this Western "East Europe Expert" things, where people in the West think one can be an expert that knows and understands everything that goes on east from the Odra river equally well /40

(I even made another thread about it recently: )

"Oh, they just don't understand Poland, but it does not mean we can't trust what they say about other issues in the region" I told myself. But more I think about it, more I am leaning towards that /41

https://twitter.com/TOrynski/status/1737925284765090019

if those experts were defending TVP World, we should take everything they say with a pinch of salt from now on.

Because, as I just said, propaganda mechanism in TVP World used a well tested method we all remember from Russia Today's times.

If those experts were unable to /42

see this and were buying the crap PiS was feeding them through their TVP World channel, do we really want to trust them when they tell us things about Russia?

/END

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