Rzeczpospolita (newspaper)

Rzeczpospolita (Polish pronunciation: [ʐɛt͡ʂpɔsˈpɔlʲita]) is a Polish national daily newspaper, with a circulation around of 94,000, issued every day except Sunday. Formerly printed in broadsheet format, Rzeczpospolita has used compact format since 16 October 2007.^[2] Its title may be loosely translated as "republic", a traditional part of the full name of the Polish state, Rzeczpospolita Polska.

History

A daily newspaper with this title was issued for the first time in 1920. Originally, the journal was under the authority of the conservative Christian National Party, but over time became independent. It was Initially owned by its founder Ignacy Jan Paderewski and after 1924 by Wojciech Korfanty, two prominent politicians of that time. The editor-in-chief Stanisław Stroński sought to maintain quality of the content by cooperating with a group of authors, including Adolf Nowaczyński, Kornel Makuszyński, and Władysław Witwicki. Despite the popularity gained, the newspaper was sold to the House of Catholic Press (Polish: Dom Prasy Katolickiej) in 1930, and two years afterwards it was merged with the right-wing daily Pole-Catholic (Polish: Polak-Katolik), supervised by the Catholic Church. Rzeczpospolita was released for the last time in 1932.

In 1944 an administration dependent on the Soviet Union started activities behind the lines of the Red Army, within the territory of Poland. Initially the activity was directed only against former Nazi German forces, in order to gain the favour of Polish society. Subsequently was established a newspaper under the name Rzeczpospolita to the needs of a newly created provisional government, strictly dependent on the Soviets. From start headed by Jerzy Borejsza it was in fact an arm of the Polish Committee of National Liberation. The newspaper began strenuous endeavours as to form a positive image of the new government. However, in 1949, the state authorities had established another newspaper – People's Tribune (Polish: Trybuna Ludu) as an organ of a newly formed political party, the Polish United Workers' Party (colloquially: party). Rzeczpospolita had been issued still by nearly two years, until 1950 when it was discontinued because coexistence of the party and government newspapers was considered at that time unfavorable for a consolidated one-party state.

In 1980 the state had faced a crisis, and consequently the party's overall image deteriorated significantly. This prompted the idea to relaunch a separate government newspaper. The state, as an entity, had become officially independent from the party (even though this independence was still largely fictitious within a communist state). Thus, from 1982 onwards, Rzeczpospolita and Trybuna Ludu resumed their parallel existence as the official bulletins of the government and the party apparatus respectively. This dualism corresponded to the situation in the Soviet Union, where the government newspaper Izvestia functioned alongside the party's Pravda, and where Izvestia has steered a course strikingly similar to Rzeczpospolita in the 1990s.

After the 1989 revolution, the new Polish government made Rzeczpospolita legitimately independent in 1991, forming a Franco-Polish joint venture named "Presspublica S.A." to publish the paper. In 1996, the Norwegian Orkla Media corporation acquired a 51% share in Presspublica, and is now in joint control of a quarter of the entire Polish press landscape. In October 2011 the owner of the paper, Presspublica, was bought by Polish businessman Grzegorz Hajdarowicz.^[3]

The circulation of the daily was 203,640 copies in January–February 2001.^[4] Its circulation was 247,000 copies in 2003.^[5]

The sister newspaper of Rzeczpospolita is Parkiet.^[3] Presspublica also owns the weekly magazine Uwazam Rze.^[3]

From 1989 until his death in 1996, the well-known journalist Dariusz Fikus was the first editor-in-chief of the independent Rzeczpospolita. He was followed by Piotr Aleksandrowicz (1996–2000), Maciej Łukasiewicz (2000–2004), Grzegorz Gauden (2004–2006), Paweł Lisicki (2006 – October 2011),^[3] Tomasz Wróblewski (2011–2012) and Bogusław Chrabota (since January 2013).^[6]

Main features

Rzeczpospolita's distinctive editorial feature is its division into three thematic sections, each with a different color: the news section is white, the business section is green, and the legal section is yellow. Apart from these daily sections, there are several supplements appearing once or twice per week, such as cars and real estate, careers, TV, and travel. On Saturdays, the paper is supplemented with a section entitled PlusMinus for essays often solicited from well-known authors showcasing a broad spectrum of opinions on politics, history, and culture.

In addition to comprehensive daily legal and financial reports, Rzeczpospolita frequently publishes rankings on companies, institutions, and government authorities, and claims to be most influential newspaper among Polish economic elites and political decision-makers.

Political profile

Rzeczpospolita's political profile is moderately conservative and arguably comparable to that of The Times in Britain. It should be noted, however, that the contemporary Rzeczpospolita reveals a moderately national taste, especially when defending the Polish raison d'etat during historical debates about Polish-German and Polish-Russian relations. It is somewhat of an adversary to the social-liberal Gazeta Wyborcza but does not favor any particular party in Poland's political landscape.

Major events

In early 2005, Rzeczpospolita found itself at the centre of a heated public debate after one of its employees, the former dissident and journalist Bronisław Wildstein, extracted a list with the names of 240,000 informers and victims of the communist secret police from the Institute of National Remembrance and distributed it among colleagues. In the wake of the incident, Wildstein was dismissed from Rzeczpospolita (cf. the article Wildstein's List in the Polish Wikipedia).

In 2006 the US-based Society for News Design voted Rzeczpospolita and British daily The Guardian as the best-designed newspapers in the world, choosing them from 389 entries from 44 countries.^[7]

See also

• Rzeczpospolita
• List of newspapers in Poland

References

External links

• Official website (Polish only)