The Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Government Information Centre appear to be escalating their efforts to prevent TV Republika from attending press conferences.
“We weren’t even able to log in to the press room portal, as the site failed to send us the access codes required for login,” said TV Republika reporter Adrian Borecki, who was attempting to attend a press conference scheduled for noon with Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Today at 12:00 PM, a press conference with the Prime Minister is scheduled, during which he is expected to officially announce the government’s spokesperson — a position that has remained unfilled for a year and a half since the cabinet was formed.
While the appointment of a spokesperson is, in principle, meant to improve communication with the media, little seems to have changed regarding access for TV Republika to the Prime Minister’s press conferences. In fact, some changes may indicate further restrictions.
“We will keep trying to gain access. It seems the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Government Information Centre are entering a new phase of excluding TV Republika from press conferences. We couldn’t even log in to the press room portal, as it failed to send the login codes. Of course, we contacted CIR staff before 10:25 AM to report the issue and ask to be added manually, as — apparently by coincidence — we were the only ones affected by the malfunction of the accreditation login page for the Prime Minister’s conference,” Borecki reported from the Chancellery.
He also noted that there have already been numerous court rulings and decisions criticizing the exclusion of TV Republika from the Prime Minister’s press events.
“The country’s largest news station being denied access to the Prime Minister’s press conferences? We’ve seen this before, though not typically in democratic nations,” Borecki remarked.
He joked that the press conference was being held in the Chancellery gardens and “separated only by a single fence.”
“So Donald Tusk will see me anyway — we’ll wave, maybe even ask a question over the fence,” he added.