Faced with the decisions of a hostile board, journalists struggle to preserve the specificity of the iconic title.
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On Thursday, November 25, at the headquarters of the Wyborcza Gazeta, the daily mythical founded by the opponent of communism and figure of the Union Solidarnosc Adam Michnik, the offices are almost deserted for pandemic. But this calm calm badly masks the true boil in which the newspaper teams have been immersed for weeks. Nervous, Adam Michnik chained cigarettes and round trips between his office and that of his first deputy, Jaroslaw Kurski. “I feel like the general of Gaulle the day before the invasion, he lets go. I am absolutely furious.”
That day, on a full page of the newspaper, the two men signed a slashing indictment against the Board of Administration of Agora, the owner of the title. They expose to readers the nature of what they call “the biggest crisis in the history of Gazeta Wyborcza”, a house that has yet seen others. For if the newspaper, in the first line of the fight against the conservative majority of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has been doing the subject of violent political attacks for six years, it is from the inside that could come the most fatal blow.
In cause: the decision of the Board of Directors of Agora, taken five months earlier, without any consultation of the editorial officer or its historical founder, to merge the title with an online information site. A “harmful blend of two incompatible economic models” in order to “save money and dismiss journalists”, denounce the two editors. An optimization of costs and a social plan more, in a newspaper and a business that makes profits.
Company of “all profit”
Will
“Wyborcza will remain the house of Polish democratic intelligentsia, where is it led to become a simple profit generator for the parent company?”, Query the two pillars of the editorial, in Accusing the Board of Directors to sell the content of the journal as well as “popcorn or fast food” in its other sectors. “What is at stake is the very identity of Gazeta Wyborcza as we have known her for more than thirty years, says Jaroslaw Kurski. It’s for us a question of being or not being.” / p>
Because the Gazeta Wyborcza occupies a very special place in the Polish media landscape. Much more than an engaged observer, she was a full actress of the post-1989 democratic transition. Its history is intimately linked to that of the Third Polish Republic, of which it has helped to shape the outlines, and of which its founder, Adam Michnik, remains one of the symbols.
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