Mark Crossey, a Brit living and working in Poland
Answers
- It depends on what kind of media. I think in the private sector, which is the majority of the media, it's up to the owners, within certain limitations of honesty and personal rights. Entertainment can be equally as valid. However, the state media should inform and educate as well.
- If people pay, and in Britain they pay quite a lot for a state television, yes, they should get something better than just entertainment. They should expect something different because they're paying for it. So, yes, I do agree with that. They should aim for something quite high educationally and culturally. If people don't get what they are paying for, then they opt out of paying for it. I think that there would be a case for that if the TV, the state services, weren't coming up to scratch with what they're supposed to be doing. However, this seems to be impractical to implement. So the answer seems to be to ensure that the state media do maintain standards worth paying for.
- To a large degree yes, though not to a hundred percent, because that's just human nature. You can't remove some kind of personal involvement in reporting. However, an organisation or a commission should be able to ensure that reporting presents a wide range of views and, in particular, places the government under scrutiny.
- I think that the newspapers in Britain can be pretty trashy; they tend to jump on bandwagons and get hysterical about issues. They can also be into vilifying individuals in a nasty manner. Television has also gone downhill of late: there is much talk of it ‘dumbing down’. British state radio is really good though. It has an excellent range of cultural and current affairs programmes and you really could listen to it all day.
- I think that when it comes into the sphere of slander then obviously the media should be restricted to a certain extent. And there have been some cases in Britain, where the press had gone too far and intruded into private lives and this can extend to blatant slander. Also in realistic terms the government should have the right, if they can justify it on state security grounds, to restrict some elements of media but under exceptional circumstances, which should be verified by an independent body.
- In Britain: the radio, as it’s very good and in Poland, the newspapers: one or two of them are really high quality.
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