TVN crosses the boundaries of hypocrisy and intellectual acrobatics. This time the channel decided to accuse PiS and TVP of involving the media and the Church in… politics. For this she used the words of the Polish episcopate and “impartial specialists in the Church”, who were in fact opposition political activists.
The heights of hypocrisy
On Thursday, TVN’s main news service “Fakty” used the position of the Permanent Council of the Polish Episcopal Conference on future parliamentary elections to attack the public media and Law and Justice. The station, today almost exclusively associated with extreme politicization and near-constant attacks on the church, sets new boundaries for hypocrisy in its material.
These boundaries are crossed for the first time when TVN accuses competition – not only competition in the media market, but also political competition, given that TVN has become a party-cum-party of the total opposition – of extreme partisanship. TVN therefore accuses others of what it hits them on the head.
For the second time, the boundaries of hypocrisy are crossed when as “objective specialists in the church and the media” in Katarzyna Kolenda-Zaleska’s material there are almost exclusively party-oriented opposition activists, whom TVN does not mention to its viewers a word.
The words of the bishops to only TVP and PiS?
The bishops “appeal to the media not to build a partisan, one-sided image of Poland”.
It would be good if, as the bishops write in their pre-election communiqué, it were this: “Politics is, in its deepest essence, a vocation to love one’s neighbour.” They also call on not to succumb to the temptation to ruthlessly discredit opponents
– says editor Piotr Krasko at the beginning of the material. And this is probably the only real information in the TVN material. Then we have the ruthless discrediting of opponents.
By encouraging citizens to participate in the elections, the bishops are making a direct appeal to politicians to “conduct electoral competition in the name of responsibility for the fate of our homeland, avoid the temptation of demagoguery and populism, ruthlessly discredit opponents or saturate the already deep division with unnecessary emotions.
Kolenda-Zaleska read an excerpt of the letter. And the portal tvp.info rightly reminds here that “the moralizing tone of the TVN employee does not correspond to his current activities.”
For years, the PiS president was attacked for false words about “real Poles”, which Kolenda-Zaleska attributed to him on TVN a few months after the crash in Smolensk.
– recalled on the tvp.info website.
Showman, ethicist and publicist…
The second problem, the so-called specialists.
In the material, former station star Szymon Hołownia, publicist Tomasz Terlikowski and Fr. Professor Andrzej Szostek. The first is an active opposition politician, the second became one of the most cited opposition journalists for his anti-clerical expression and participation in TVN’s attack on Pope John Paul II. The third is a longtime open critic of PiS, known for his bias. Coincidence that TVN reached out to these three to comment on the bishops’ words?
Theologian and philosopher, or KO council member and head of PO?
It is similar in the last part of the TVN material, when the named experts Jarosław Makowski and Prof. Tadeusz Gadacz.
“Jarosław Makowski was signed as »theologian, philosopher«. On the belt under his name it was not mentioned that he was also a councilor and head of the civic platform in Katowice, who was a candidate of the civic coalition for the presidency of this city a few years ago, “notes the service WP Teleshow. . On his in turn, Prof. Tadeusz Gadacz, introduced to the public of the private station as an “ethicist”, is also a member of the Nowoczesna Party and Councilor of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship Sejmik on behalf of the Civic Coalition
– says tvp.info.
It is enough to go to the websites of the Marshal’s Office of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship or to the May 2018 event archive to see that everything written about Gadacz and Makowski is true. It is worth adding that Makowski became famous among other efforts not to name – in accordance with the dismantling law – Maria and Lech Kaczyński Square one of the squares in the center of Katowice. Gadacz, on the other hand, is a former piarist who has left the order and the priesthood.
A cure for losing
TVN knows that “politics in its deepest essence is a calling to love one’s neighbor and the common good”, and therefore – as Polish politics has shown since 2015 – it is natural for right-wing politicians and the Church, while maintaining their autonomy, on many issues.
TVN does not stop at criticizing TVP and right-wing politicians in its material. Finally, there is also mentorship about the responsibilities of the church.
Jarosław Makowski asks uncertainly:
How will the words of the bishops translate into daily practice, into the political decisions of individual pastors?
And editor Kolenda-Zalewska adds:
Will the bishops’ vote convince all parish priests not to support specific candidates, especially since Jarosław Kaczyński wanted the polling stations to be close to churches?
The uncertainty seems justified. Not everyone is attracted to TVN’s manipulations.
READ ALSO: The Permanent Council of the Polish Episcopate appealed to the electoral campaign participants: To refrain from instrumentalization of the Church
rdm/fakty.tvn24.pl/tvp.info
Source: wPolityce