Leszek Miller: daily Tribuna closed, a bad sign for Polish media market
This week operations at the Polish left-wing daily newspaper Tribuna were suspended and its journalists sent on an extended leave.
This week operations at the Polish left-wing daily newspaper Tribuna were suspended and its journalists sent on an extended leave.
Tribuna was first published in 1990 after the closure of Tribuna Ludu, the newspaper of the Polish United Worker's Party. Was Poland’s only social-democratic daily suspended because of government displeasure, the economic crisis, or its journalists’ unprofessionalism?
Leszek Miller, a left-wing politician who was head of Tribuna’s board and the prime minister of Poland (2001-2004) and is a member of RIA Novosti’s Valdai Discussion Club, answers these and other questions in an interview he granted to Leonid Sviridov in Warsaw.
Q: I was shocked by the news that Tribuna has closed. On the other hand, everyone was waiting for the outcome of the journalists’ struggle for survival. Can you explain why it was closed?
A:Tribuna has fallen for several reasons, first of all because of economic problems. The daily had a huge debt, which continued to accumulate. It did not have a strategic investor, and although it had a number of ideas, none of them led to the signing of binding documents.
Finally, the paper’s creditors, primarily the printing shop, said Tribuna must pay up or they would not print it.
Second, the problem has a political component. It was the only national daily representing the left-wing social democratic forces in Poland. Tribuna stood in opposition to the government of Donald Tusk and to President Lech Kaczynski, both of them right-wing politicians. So it could not hope for assistance from the government. Moreover, it was losing advertisement revenue because advertisers saw that their ads could provoke a negative attitude from the authorities.
Q: Was it a collusion of the right-wing Tusk government against a left-wing newspaper?
A: Government reshuffles in Poland traditionally lead to many other changes, and businesses, both private and state-controlled, carefully consider possible consequences of such change to know what to expect.
Q: Is this why the conservative daily Dziennik recently merged with the financial paper Gazeta Prawna?
A: Yes, you are right. Tribuna was closed because advertisers stopped placing ads in it. When I was prime minister, the daily was offered on all flights made by the national Polish airline, LOT. When I left, Tribuna disappeared from its planes.
But the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and the other left-wing parties should have helped Tribuna. Now they don’t have a newspaper to represent them.
The SLD has always helped the newspaper, and so I don’t think we can blame them. The Alliance legally provided financial assistance to Tribuna in the most difficult periods.
Maybe we should look at the newspaper’s journalists, who I think are a third reason why it closed. In the last few months, Tribuna became too soft; being an opposition newspaper, it could have been much more sharp and critical and could have raised many more difficult questions. But its management feared that criticism of the authorities would create additional problems for the daily. As a result, Tribuna lost readers.
Q: Did you believe that it would survive?
A: I did think that it would weather its problems, but its readership was shrinking and advertisers were leaving it. The publisher failed to find a strategic investor. This is all very sad.
Q: What consequences can we expect from its demise?
A: This is a bad sign for the Polish media market because the domination of right-wing forces has now grown in the media.
Q: Will Tribuna be revived?
A: Not in its old form. Its place will be most likely taken by a new left-wing newspaper representing social democratic views. The niche it has left will not remain vacant long, and some of its journalists will most likely be hired by the new newspaper.
Q: Next year Poland will have presidential elections. How will the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and other left-wing parties fight for the presidency without a daily?
A: This is a good question. We must have a left-wing newspaper even though all presidential candidates will be given television and radio time in the public media.
Tribuna was important because it was delivered every day to all bodies of power, including the president, the prime minister, all government members and regional leaders. The authorities knew what was happening on the left. But Poland lost this source several days ago.