Poland’s National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) has overturned a controversial fine it imposed on the Scripps Networks Interactive station TVN last month.
At the same time, it has announced the creation of a Media Round Table.
In a statement, the regulator says that “after getting acquainted with the positions of the social side and additional analyses and arguments presented by the interested party…the chairman of the (KRRiT) decided to repeal the decision…of December 11, 2017”.
It adds that its chairman Witold Kolodziejski, “noting the extraordinary importance of the problem of brutalization of public life, growing aggression directed against journalists, propagation of hate speech and disinformation of so-called fake news, announced the creation of a Round Table at the KRRiT with the participation of journalistic and scientific communities, but above all with the active participation of broadcasters. The chairman (of the KRRiT) stressed that freedom of speech means responsibility for them and that is why the need to jointly develop self-regulatory forms in the media becomes so urgent”.
Broadband TV News notes that the imposition of the PLN1.479 million fine, for the reporting of events in the Polish parliament (Sejm) by TVN’s news channel TVN24 at the end of 2016, was widely criticised, not only in Poland but also further afield.
Indeed, even the US’s Department of Justice expressed its concerns.
Since then, the KRRiT has held a number of meetings with TVN in order to resolve the situation.
