Posted on 03/13/2007 2:18:10 PM PDT by lizol
Polish journalists: lustration statements not humiliating, but obvious
13.03.2007
In response to some journalists calling for a boycott of the new vetting, or 'lustration' law, which requires journalists to admit in writing whether they have nor not been involved in collaboration with communist era secret services, another group of journalists has spoken in support of the law.
Earlier a group of liberal and leftist journalists announced they will not obey the new regulations and refused to come clean about their past. In a special inside instruction, Poland's major liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza informed its journalist on how to evade the law.
Now another group of journalists is calling for transparency and honesty on the subject of some journalists' collaboration with the communist regime.
'Reliability and rectitude are the basic conditions in the practice of our profession, because this allows us to evaluate public figures and represent the public opinion.' the journalists have written, condemning the call to boycott the new transparency law. They also stressed that they disagree with what they consider an unfair impression that journalists are against the vetting process. 'To state publicly that we did not collaborate with the communist secret services is nothing humiliating. It's something obvious,' they added.
The letter in support of the vetting, or 'lustration' process was signed by a number of journalists from the country's leading mainstream media.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński has criticized those journalists who refuse to undergo the vetting process, and to admit if they had been secret collaborators of Poland's former communist regime.
'A group of people who consider themselves the elite want to be exempt from the law,' the Prime Minister said adding that such attitude has to be fought with in a decided manner.
In this situation there is either a need to introduce sanctions for refusing to abide by the new transparency rules or the public opinion will automatically condemn those journalists who think the rules do not apply to them, the Prime Minister has commented.
Meanwhile, archbishop Józef Michalik has said, that the public life should be ordered by equal rules for everyone. The archbishop deems it 'dangerous', that a part of one professional group is trying to exclude their deeds from the public scrutiny.
Former head of the Polish public television, Bronisław Wildstein, is of the opinion that undergoing the vetting, or 'lustration' process is the moral duty of every journalist and the boycott attempt of some of them is just a 'grotesque effort to block it.' Journalists refusing to undergo transparency procedures are disturbing the public debate and are putting at risk the reputation of independent journalism, Wildstein has said.
Can we make our journalists do the same thing?
America is in desperate need of a Red Hunt at all levels of government as well as in the media, academia, and entertainment industry.
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