Agnieszka Ostrowska, a TV journalist working for Telewizja Polska S.A. and a member of the British Alumni Society (BAS)
Answers
- If I had to choose, I would go for information. In this role the media cannot be replaced by any other body – unlike in the case of education and entertainment, where they play only a supportive role and it would be sad if they replaced, say, parents or a real-life entertainment.
I think that media fulfil all the three roles very well - as long as we take into consideration the whole spectrum of different TV and radio channels with their programmes and a huge variety of press titles. Nowadays the public has a big choice, there are programmes/ newspapers/ magazines directed all target groups, including different “niches”, like, for example, theatre lovers or homosexuals.
- In my opinion, a little bit of both. On the one hand, the public service broadcasting should try to shape public taste, on the other – it should take into consideration that it is not operating in a vacuum. It would be a great failure to let the commercial sector take the viewers away. Perhaps the answer to this problem is trying to pack up important content in a more attractive form: to experiment with the form, make it lighter, more dynamic.
- I do not think full objectivity is possible. Every single journalist’s decision – what issue to present, whom to talk to, in which order; and so on – is already a choice that is presenting only a fraction of reality. Decent journalists should try to be as objective and impartial as possible, to forget about their personal views – but they will always be shaped by their personal beliefs and these beliefs, in turn, will always have impact upon the coverage of the story. I think we cannot escape from that.
- They are much the same. There is a broad spectrum of different media directed at all sorts of audiences. One could find equivalents of many Polish press titles, radio and TV programmes to the Western ones: for example, “Rzeczpospolita” daily could be compared to the British “Financial Times”, “SuperExpres” – to the British daily tabloids, like “The Sun”, TVN 24 – to the American CNN, an so on. Foreign press concerns have invested money over here. The media market has become globalised. It is particularly visible in the field of entertainment: we buy exactly the same formats or programmes as the rest of Europe, and even the world: Cosmopolitan, Playboy, reality shows, soap operas… One can observe a clear tendency towards commercialisation – both in Poland and in the foreign media. This is an alarming fact we have to face.
- Fortunately, censorship nowadays has no right of being. In a democratic system, with the whole range of media – from radical right to the left – it is difficult to prevent information from being made public. However, freedom of speech should have limits: people shouldn’t be talked into being intolerant, cruel or aggressive toward the others.
- It is hard to say. Each medium has its own values: television is the most complete - you can see the reactions and make your own judgements not only on the basis of the content of texts, but also - human behaviour, body language and all other non-verbal signs. Newspapers are less elusive than electronic media – the written word stays; does not disappear as soon as it is broadcast. Internet gives you unlimited access to information from different sources, but this brings about a danger of some information being unqualified, fake.
My favourite newspaper is “Rzeczpospolita” – because it is in my opinion the most impartial and objective daily in Poland. Favourite TV programmes – news (I try to watch news on different TV channels so as to compare how the issues were covered and if they were covered at all) and film channels (Canal+; HBO].
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