Polish journalists’ media tour to Belarus ended in scandal
- 24.03.2011, 13:05
The media tour had been announced as “an absolutely non-political”, however it was used for approval of Lukashenka’s regime.
Trips of journalists from Russian provinces to Belarus, which end in live press-conferences of Lukashenka repeat every year. But this year on March 15-19 Belarus was visited by Belarusian journalists, “Nasha Niva” informs.
As state-run mass-media informed, the visit had been organized by the branch of “Poland-Belarus” public association in Pomorze (Pomeranian Voivodeship), the Consulate General in Gdansk and the Cultural Centre of Belarus in Poland. The guests have visited Silichy, Khatyn, the National Library, “Babushkina Krynka” dairy enterprise, visited regional and district capitals.
The Belarusian TV stressed that the Poles are interested in the objective economic information on Belarus, and there is “no politics” in it. But in the final news item a characteristic introduction was used: common Poles do not support the EU resolution on Belarus.
“It is beautiful and pleasant here”
The Polish “landing party” consisted of two dozens of people, many of them are members of photographers’ association of Pomorze. However, those who were not mass media representatives, appeared in front of the cameras more often. For instance Mikolaj Biritski – a director of an insurance company. He said that everything in Belarus is different from what Polish media say. Or Ivan Hajdel, a deputy chairman of the public association “Belarus-Poland”. In good Russian he told about a low unemployment rate in Belarus, and about much worse state of things in Poland. A young journalist Martin Osowski also spoke Russian without a foreign accent. “It is beautiful and nice here in your country,” he summed up, turning his face away from the camera.
The topic of the “beauty” was continued by Hanna K Kłos, who was presented as the editor-in-chief of Pomorski Przegląd Gospodarczy (Pomeranian Economic Review) magazine. She was talking about clean cities and European roads with delight, and that before 1995 Belarusians lived in poverty, but now they are happy and pleased by everything…
A magazine “Pomorski Przegląd Gospodarczy” is published in Gdansk. Its editor-in-chief is Martin Nowicki. No other magazine with a similar title and editor Hanna Kłos was detected in Polish web.
“Polish samizdat representatives have come”
The guests have visited the Polish Houses of the pro-regime Union of Poles as well. As noted by Andrzej Poczobut, a Hordna-based journalist, collegues from Poland have not met with representatives of the independent Union of Poles. Poczobut told that he had not found even a single representative of any serious publication in the group. There were no journalists of the regional editorial offices of either Gazeta Wyborcza, or Dziennik Baitycki. Poczobut believes that representatives of specialized business media outlets have embarked on the trip, who can close their eyes to domestic political situation for the sake of useful business connections in Belarus. And also there were representative of marginal homespun media, who are ready to answer initiation of the Belarusian Embassy any time.
We were kept within bounds
Not all of the guests shared upbeat sentiments reflect by items of the Belarusian TV. A reporter of Twoja Telewizja Morska TV channel Konrad Słupa described to “Nasha Niva” how the tour was taking place.
The Belarusian Consulate in Gdansk announced the trip as a pronouncedly apolitical event. The Belarusian side defrayed all the expenses. As said by Konrad, during the trip journalists “were kept within certain limits”, they could not choose a rout themselves.
But which had outraged him most, was the fact that their visit was used for propagandistic purposes. On behalf of his TV channel he has written a letter to Belarusian TV and Radio Company and expressed a protest. The journalist is preparing a journalistic story which would make it clear what he had seen in Belarus in reality.
Photo: A reporter of Twoja Telewizja Morska Konrad Słupa has written a letter of protest to Belarusian TV (BT).