A photo of him painting walls spread all over Poland last week. . Only part of this information turned out to be true. As Krzysztof Ziemiec now explains in a video on YouTube, he actually worked physically and yes, the photo did not lie that he painted the walls. But neither is Ireland and neither is a departure from the media. On the contrary.
Krzysztof Ziemiec will soon start his own project. On the “Otwarta Konserwa” YouTube channel, together with, as he says, a group of trusted journalist friends, he will try to launch his own “Channel Zero”. “The rumors about my death were premature,” he announces. In the first recording on the channel, he also recalled his work at TVP and made a sort of examination of conscience over the last eight years.
Krzysztof Ziemiec about working at TVP
Krzysztof Ziemiec devoted the first recording on “Otwarta Konserwa” half to a summary of the last eight years of work for TVP and half to plans for the future. After losing his job in the public media, the journalist disappeared for a long time. He spent this time gathering a group of friends and organizing a new workplace. It will be the “Otwarta Konserwa” channel, because, as Ziemiec claims, currently only YouTube guarantees independence and the lack of ideological pressure from any superior – no one can pressure you, since you are your own boss, he seems to say.
In a long statement about his work at TVP, he recalled mainly the good sides of working in the largest editorial office in public media. It truly offered enormous opportunities, as Ziemiec mentions:
It has been my job for 20 years, for better and for worse. In life there are different decisions and choices, and you can suffer different consequences. But can you be ashamed of them? I don’t think so. I think that in my professional work for many years I have shown that I can do it quite well within the limits that existed. The patches are easy for someone to stick on. Many programs that I had the opportunity to host and co-host were programs that went down in the history of television and Poland, he said.
He distances himself from the government propaganda that TVP presidents have been pushing into Poles’ heads in recent years. He claims he was not a propagandist:
I am not ashamed, I have no intention of being considered a propagandist of any kind. I was considered a propagandist for the last 8 years, but not before? People, be serious. I’m not ashamed of it. I am the author of hundreds of interviews. And the truth is that a lot of programs have been created on television, as it has been in recent years. You can’t throw them all into one bag. (…) When television changed in 2016, I received several emails. “Mr. Ziemiec, don’t sit astride the barricade! You have to choose one side or the other.” I did not subscribe to either side. Hence these types of comments directed towards me. I was not a pro-PiS or pro-government journalist.
Krzysztof Ziemiec recalls the terrible edition of “Wiadomości” about Paweł Adamowicz
In 2019, Krzysztof Ziemiec ran the infamous edition of “Wiadomości”, which went down in history due to its narrative against the murdered Paweł Adamowicz and the then opposition. The program negatively presented Jurek Owsiak’s Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity and the opposition, which supported WOŚP – in opposition to PiS. The tragic death of the president of Gdańsk was used to recall the disgusting words that had been uttered in previous years by PO politicians: Sikorski about “reaping the harvest of the pack”, Schetyna about the “PiS locusts”, while appealing at the same time not to escalate political hatred. The material does not show the other side of the barricade, which also willingly talked about, for example, “treacherous murderers” (Kaczyński) or “fans of perverts, thieves, flirtatious boors and slanderers” and “deputy cattle” (the reliable Pawłowicz).
Ziemiec announced the material, but, as he says now, he was not aware of what was in it. Shortly after its broadcast, he resigned:
This is something that is still extremely painful for me, because I received hate on my chest, heart, head, eyes and face, which should not have been directed at me. If I had known then what was in these materials, I would never have set foot there. Evidence? The first thing I did when I returned from Gdańsk was to go to the management and submit my notice from television. For what happened – that it was beyond me, beyond my knowledge and consent, it was something I had no idea about, something I would never agree to and something I had no influence on. I wanted to leave television completely. It ended up that I replaced the editorial office of “Wiadomości” with the editorial office of “Teleexpress”.
Krzysztof Ziemiec painfully accurately diagnoses the current state of the media in Poland
Regardless of the sympathy and antipathy towards Krzysztof Ziemiec, it cannot be denied that his diagnosis of the media in Poland is accurate. A former TVP employee and long-time journalist claims that the viewer is so addicted to receiving content that suits his worldview that he is unable to calmly accept objective content:
Nowadays, when we live in our bubbles from which we cannot leave, it is enough to not be anti-PiS enough to not be included in the PiS group. And vice versa. There is less and less room for people in the middle. This way you can pigeonhole anyone. And the media should be open to different opinions and different people, and you, the viewers, should form your own opinion based on what different guests say.
Today, the viewer is such a trained viewer that he or she must receive content that confirms his or her beliefs. If he gets something that makes him think, question his view of the world, he is helpless. Then it requires the journalist to change his views or side of the barricade, he says.
However, the question remains whether viewers were so “trained” eight years ago.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
