Casus „Polityki”

Abstract

Despite the passage of more than a quarter-century since the decline of the Polish People’s Republic a weekly magazine ‘Polityka’, which occupied the second position of the sales results in 2014, has been holding a stable position on the weekly market review. This title was created in 1957 on the initiative of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party. During the period of the PPR (PRL) the weekly was used as a propaganda mouthpiece of the then communist authorities. As a result of this fact, in the 3rd Republic of Poland ‘Polityka’ made efforts to be associated with the center-left in order to lend credence in the eyes of the public. It should be added that at the same time ‘Polityka’ did not avoid presenting clearly on which side of the political scene it stood, the result of which was the fact that during the election campaigns on its columns it tried to promote those candidates who were supported by the editor’s party. It is also worthwhile noticing that after the fall of the Polish People’s Republic, the employees of this weekly decided to establish a journalism cooperative, which took over the right to the title. Great changes in the functioning of the magazine were introduced on 28 September 2012 when a limited joint-stock partnership ‘Polityka’ was created. What is more meaningful, not all of 130 employees of the publishing house became shareholders as the shares in the limited liability company were covered by only 20 key employees of the cooperative, who thanks to it gained crucial influence on the development plans and editorial policy of the weekly. Thereby in the area of the all-Poland media a cooperative form of ownership ceased to exist, symbolically ending the period of ownership transformation of the media, which begun after the fall of the Polish People’s Republic.