Posted on 01/15/2007 11:48:19 AM PST by lizol
Poland broadcasts "truth" to Belarus
Sun Jan 14, 2007 6:58pm ET18
By Chris Johnson
BIALYSTOK, Poland (Reuters) - From simple back offices in a provincial Polish town, a radio station is broadcasting around the clock to Belarus, giving the ex-Soviet republic one of its few sources of independent news.
Run by opponents of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, Radio Racja (Truth) is helping wage an information war against a regime branded by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as "Europe's last dictatorship".
Supported by the Polish Foreign Ministry and Budapest-based Open Society Institute founded by U.S. billionaire investor George Soros, Radio Racja is one of only two independent stations broadcasting freely into Belarus.
The station uses Web technology to mix popular music and social commentary with uncensored news in both Belarussian and Russian, aiming to provide a platform for both opposition parties and Belarussian bands, some of which are banned at home.
"I dream of a free and independent Belarus," says editor-in- chief Wiktor Stachwiuk, a 58-year-old exile. "I want to give Belarussians a taste of a free society. Official media do not let them hear what is really going on."
Lukashenko, in power since 1994, keeps a tight rein on the eastern European country and its 10 million inhabitants, sandwiched between Poland and Russia.
He rejects all criticism of his rule and has called for vigilance to keep Belarus safe from Western "lies and violence". Opposition politicians and journalists have disappeared and all media outlets face serious restrictions.
Western countries accuse Lukashenko of systematic crackdowns on the opposition and dismiss all Belarus elections over the last decade as unfair. They say the president blatantly rigged elections last year to engineer a landslide win for himself.
"I could not simply stand by and watch what was happening in my country without doing anything," Stachwiuk said. He first set up Radio Racja in 1999 and it broadcast from the Polish capital of Warsaw until 2002.
INTIMIDATION
His Warsaw station eventually ran into financial problems and it took Stachwiuk and his associates three more years to raise enough money to launch the station in Bialystok, closer to Belarus and able to broadcast deeper into the country.
It now has a budget of $1 million a year, half of which is spent on transmitters: two in Poland and two in Lithuania.
Almost a year after its relaunch, Stachwiuk estimates Radio Racja, with a staff of just 32, has an audience of up to 400,000 mostly in western Belarus, plus tens of thousands of exiles, and says it is building up rapidly on short and medium wave and on a newly launched FM band:
"The station can be heard well on medium wave all the way to (Belarus capital) Minsk and can even be picked up in Finland."
The station has a small network of reporters, mostly working under pseudonyms, across Belarus who record programs using MP3 technology and send them via the Internet to Bialystok or to one of two covert editing stations in Belarus.
Radio Racja editors say their correspondents face daily harassment from the Belarus authorities -- mostly just petty intimidation but occasionally arrest and jail.
"Several of our people have been put in prison for a few days, one for 10 days, but nothing more serious so far," said Michal Andrysiuk, 47, head of FM broadcasting.
"One of our correspondents broadcast live from a police car after being arrested on a charge of cursing in the street. Hooliganism is the most frequent official excuse to arrest people who are obviously known to the police," he said.
"NO TRUTH IN THE NEWS"
Belarus opposition politicians and journalists welcome Radio Racja's efforts to break the state media monopoly but say its impact so far has been limited, partly because most Belarussians rely on television for news.
Zhanna Litvina, head of the Belarussian Association of Journalists, said by telephone it was a "comforting thought that such radio stations exist and that Belarussians are working for them".
"Unfortunately, you cannot say that such projects are very effective in current Belarussian conditions. To make them effective you would need transmitters in Belarus and under current conditions that is impossible."
But the radio station's backers in Poland are convinced that there is an audience and that it is growing: "I was in Belarus some time ago and met people listening to the radio and glad of it," said Michal Dworczyk, a key advisor on eastern European issues to Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. "The media role in the fight for democracy is indisputable. For Belarus and its people, it is essential."
And Radio Racja's staff say they are not discouraged and will keep broadcasting, even if the audience is tiny.
"We really want to show what is going on. We try to be objective, asking for comment from the government, but they won't talk to us," said program director Jana Kamienskaja, 37.
"'There is no news in the truth, and there is no truth in the news' -- unfortunately this old Soviet proverb is still valid in Belarus."
Belarus officials declined to comment on Radio Racja.
The joke is about the Russian Communist "news"papers Pravda ("Truth") and Izvestia ("News"): "V Pravdye nye izvestia, v Izvestia nye pravda - There's no news in The Truth and no truth in The News!"
I confirm
We still have in Poland such "Pravda", "Gazeta Wyborcza". Popularly called "Gazeta Wybiórcza" what means "Selective Newspaper". You have been in Poland so perhaps you heard about them?
I have read GW and read it now and then, but you are really exaggerating when you compare it with Pravda. Not even in Russia do they now have such newspapers, except some with very low circulation. (I assume that Zhirinovsky has a newspaper, is that correct?)
Perhaps you are right, GW is even worse than Pravda which was run in totalitarian state. While GW existed firstly in quasi democratic and later purely democratic country. Hardly you can find worse pathological liars. Propaganda in Pravda was very primitive while GW pretend to be objective :) You wont find in this forum one Pole who would say something good about this rag. By incident yesterday I finished reading the only book ever written about them by their former journalist (first year of existence). If you read Polish perhaps you should also read it, then maybe you would stop to buy this crap. Author name is Stanislaw Remuszko and title “Gazeta Wyborcza. Poczatki i Okolice”. Visit this website. The best newspaper in Poland recently is “Dziennik”.
I read "Rzeczpospolita"
Yes, Rzeczpospolita is a good newspaper, and this http://www.pulsbiznesu.com.pl is as well useful reading.
I read internet version w PB, interesting indeed.
Dziennik is worse than Wyborcza, I don't think it will last for long. The standard of journalism in Poland is very low, there are some good journalists in Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita, Dziennik but just some. And the fact is every newspaper is selective. Best thing to do is to get information from as many different sources as possible.
I’m curious how would you back this claim. Dziennik is quite pluralist, different kind of opinion are represented, polemics are common thing. Wyborcza has one strict, biased line and no right wing journalist are allowed to publish there. Dziennik have very good Saturday’s addition “Europa”. Journalist from Dziennik publish also in other newspapers, in GW they aren’t allowed to do so (like a sect). GW is full of advertisement in opposition to Dziennik. Dziennik redactors are much much more better than propagandist from GW. No self-respecting journalist would agree to work for newspaper where only one point of view is welcome. Dziennik don’t lecture readers what they should think, this is obsession of GW to act in this manner. If we compare attitude toward current government, right wing journalist in Dziennik are critical when is necessary, leftist of course always. In GW we see always radically negative attitude and different kind of manipulations aimed to harm government. (famous poll when they PiS was loudly proclaimed the most corrupt party, after three months (?), they silently admitted mistake.) GW claimed once, that Warsaw uprising was done only to kill the rest of the Polish Jews. Only anti-Polish rag may publish such lies. They are also great supporters of liar T. Gross. Dziennik was created by private company, GW stole state owned property, how the hell happened that Agora is private company now?
I don't think it will last for long.
Just started and already bigger than Rzeczpospolita. Dziennik is rising while GW otherwise, just facts.
And the fact is every newspaper is selective.
Not truth, every newspaper has some general line but some allow opponents to defend their views. GW is selective because they are able to completely ignore events that they don’t like, others publish negative or positive articles but always something. Even Trybuna is much better than GW in this category.
The standard of journalism in Poland is very low, there are some good journalists in Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita, Dziennik but just some.
Please name them, I’m curious especially about those from GW. Since 2004, I read regularly English language newspapers, plus translation in Polish press and I failed to notice how their standards are superior.
Just as I thought you would, you're trying to put me in the posistion of Wyborcza advocate. I'm fully aware of its weakness, Wyborcza is biased but you can also find good articles, feuilletons especially when they're not about current politics. There are subjects they try to show from different views. I have to ask you to provide source about the Warsaw rising article 'cause I remember some very good articles related to it (and they were full of praise for the fighters).
I read only the first edition of Dziennik and it was so poor I never gave it another chance. Talking about rags, in my impression it was closest to it of any Polish newspapers that pretend to be serious. Apart from the news and comments, the other sections were also laughable - sport or their culture guide (whatever it's called). It was like every journalist wrote about things he had't had a slightest idea of. I know it's a common things for journalists but it storke me hard in Dziennik.
I did not put you in position of advocate of the GW, you simply cannot back your own statement by reasonable arguments. As you admitted, you read Dziennik only once, this is not enough to make such judgments.
I also read several articles reprinted in other papers and available on-line. It may be not enough for you, it was enough for me. I can't be more specific about faults of Dziennik as I didn't bother to remember which articles/authors gave me the worst impression. I'm not a fan of Wyborcza nor its journalists and I don't pay attention to names, it's enough that when I read it I can sometimes find valuable articles. When I read Dziennik I felt as I was reading one of my local newspapers - wondering how they managed waste so much space with no real content.
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