Andrzej Andrysiak from “Gazeta Radomszczańska” was awarded the title of writer of the Year 2024 in the most crucial competition GRAND PRESS. It wasn't me to justice or rightly judge, due to the fact that it was the decision of many editorials. For me, the writer of the year 2024 – as I already wrote in these pages – was Renata Kim from “Newsweek” – the author of the most loud articles about Collegium Humanum. It was thanks to them that we learned corrupt pathology at Polish universities, in which politicians of different options are involved, and consequently we began to take an interest in academic life and the poorness of Polish discipline and scientists, demoted by subsequent governments to the function of parvenius. In addition to Renata Kim, Patryk Słowik from Virtual Poland, a distinguished writer of the past year, has conducted investigative journalism in various varieties: economic, legal and political. All 3 look at the hands of power, not just the opposition, as many pro-government journalists do, unfortunately. This is simply a very interesting phenomenon: erstwhile “our” comes to power, we are more understanding, more compassionate, and we recognise that the fresh power must get utilized to the fresh situation, and we frequently forget that they are politicians or officials who have been present in public life for many years and should anticipate them to comply with standards that the erstwhile power did not meet. We must besides account for the fresh power, even out of unfulfilled promises, due to the fact that we would all like to live in a better world, and this depends mostly on the quality of legislative and executive power.
This year has shown that in our centralised media bubble we frequently underestimate local problems that are of large social importance and global dimension. Tomasz Pator and Joanna Pęcherska-Fiałek from TVN, the authors of the award-winning series of tv reports "The Spirit rules in Żuromin" – the plague of young junkies addicted to fentanyl. Interestingly, only 1 of the 15 main awards in the GRAND PRESS competition was awarded to a writer of public average – Dominika Dębska from Polish Radio Białystok. With TVP, only 1 – Monika Melen from TVP Kraków – was nominated in the category of tv coverage. specified a large company with specified a low representation, and why? I say that's due to the fact that TVP inactive lacks 1 very crucial feature: to be public, not government. It's a cancer that's been moving this institution for years and inactive hasn't been cured, although it's better than it was. But it's inactive far from perfect.
I hope that in the fresh year we will yet have a fresh media bill. That the National Media Council will vanish as an institution, and it will not last just due to the fact that it was taken over by the rulings. That there will be competitions for executive positions in public media, transparent and open to everyone. That editorial positions will be decided by competence, not cognition or political views. And that Maciej Świrski will cease to service as head of the National Broadcasting Council. But that's didaskalia. It's a groundbreaking improvement that will heal the media. At the end of fresh Year's greetings in the form of an appeal to politicians to fulfill their promise: give public media to the public!
