Polish state channel TVP spearheaded a disinformation campaign which has led to death threats against Dorota Bawolek, a well-known and respected Brussels journalist, who works for Polsat, the first private channel in Poland, widely considered the most neutral.
Bawolek, who has worked as a Brussels correspondent for Polsat since 2008, was covering the EPP pre-summit meeting on Thursday (20 October), where an incident occurred which led to her being attacked by the state media and members of the public.
Based on press reporting in Poland as the hate campaign was unfolding on Sunday, EURACTIV has retraced the events as follows.
Bawolek was tasked by Polsat to record an interview with Donald Tusk, leader of Civic Platform (PO), about the “spying/corruption scandal” in Poland – an old story dating from 2014, that saw the downfall of the PO government. It is still used by the current government of Law and Justice in their fight against Tusk.
Bawolek arranged a one-to-one interview with Tusk via his advisor Paweł Graś, and as agreed, she went to the EPP summit, where she expected to interview Tusk live on air after the meeting.
As Tusk came for the interview, there were many journalists and camera operators waiting for politicians, particularly many Italian journalists waiting for Silvio Berlusconi. When Tusk came to speak to Bawolek, other journalists and cameramen got closer and tried to ask him questions.
Bawolek kindly explained that the interview was an exclusive one-to-one. All the foreign cameramen and journalists accepted this and moved away, except for a cameraman apparently on assignment for TVP but with no station logo on the equipment or microphone.
Bawolek repeated to him in Polish that the interview was only for Polsat TV and asked him to stop recording. As he continued, she wondered Tusk if he would speak to TVP, and he replied, “no”.
TVP then broadcasted the segment with crucial parts edited out, including the part where Bawolek kindly explained the interview was a pre-arranged exclusive. Instead, they only disclosed Tusk saying “no” to the interview.
The state media then accused Bawolek of refusing to let their journalists ask Tusk questions about the scandal and broadcast it as the main news at prime time on Thursday evening.
Bawolek was subsequently flooded with hate messages on Twitter and Facebook, where people said she is not a journalist but a defender of Tusk, and others said she is having an affair with him.
Other comments called her a “Russian bitch” and “German whore” and said her head “should be shaved like in Auschwitz” and that she should be “hanged”.
Bawolek used Twitter to explain that she was not trying to protect a politician. Still, her interview was agreed as an exclusive and the cameraman who turned out to work for TVP, although without identification, tried to steal her work.
On Friday, a popular TVP journalist and head of TAI – Polish Television Information Agency, Jarosław Olechowski, accused Bawolek of not letting “TVP journalists ask their questions to Tusk”.
She replied that there were no TVP journalists present, only a cameraman without identification, and Tusk told him that he would not speak to TVP.
After she said she didn’t agree to be filmed, TVP started to blur her photo, and the story was number one on their portal and channel over the weekend. On Friday, TVP used the manipulated clip four times in a three-minute story.
Bawolek said she was grateful for also receiving support from colleagues and the Brussels-based International Press Association API/IPA.
Our colleague @DorotaBawolek was interrupted yday while doing an interview. A ?? state tv employee recorded the interview against her request & then the tv manipulated the story. Later, Dorota became target of a smear campaign. We strongly condemn the harassment of our colleague!
— API-IPA (@apibrussels) October 21, 2022
Bawolek’s interview with Tusk was quite tough, independent Polish journalists told EURACTIV. They also confirmed that TVP was a mouthpiece of the ruling party PiS and that media standards did not apply to them.
[Edited by Alice Taylor]
Source: euractiv.com
