Exec defends Polish Radio, blasts German ‘fake news’

The EU's top court last Friday ruled that contested reforms to Poland’s Supreme Court should be suspended amid a legal row between Warsaw and Brussels.

Polish President Andrzej Duda was on Tuesday asked by a German journalist why the Polish Radio 3 station on Saturday did not report on the decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which ordered that Polish Supreme Court judges sent off into retirement should be reinstated in their posts.

The question was posed at a press conference in Berlin by a journalist with Germany’s Der Tagesspiegel daily, Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita has reported.

Tomasz Kowalczewski, deputy director of Polish Radio 3, has told Rzeczpospolita in an interview that Polish Radio 3 ran multiple news reports about the ruling issued by the EU Court of Justice, which ordered that a reform of the Polish Supreme Court be suspended until a fuller ruling is made on a complaint submitted by the European Commission against Poland.

“It's typical fake news,” Kowalczewski said, as quoted by the Rzeczpospolita daily, referring to the question posed by the German journalist.

“The journalist from Germany’s Der Tagesspiegel is mistaken. Polish Radio 3 ran many reports on the decision of the CJEU. Our first report was on Friday at 1 pm, which means just after it happened. Then from 2 pm until the late evening our news services not only kept providing coverage on the decision of the CJEU itself, but we also collected the first comments.”

He said that Polish Radio 3 did not run reports on the ruling in its Saturday broadcasts because the “generally accepted standard in the media is that news is reported the day it happens.”

He added that on Saturday “no new information” appeared “on this subject” and that no current-affairs programmes with comments by politicians were broadcast so as not to interfere with a temporary media blackout ahead of local government elections in Poland.

The blackout, which forbade political campaigning, came into force in the country on Friday at midnight. The ban lasted until polling stations officially closed on Sunday evening.

“I encourage Mr. Christoph von Marschall from Der Tagesspiegel to listen to Polish Radio 3 not only on Saturdays. Then he will be up to date,” Kowalczewski said, as quoted by Rzeczpospolita.

(gs/pk)

Source: Rzeczpospolita