I am watching Russian NTV news on SBS in Australia occasionally. The quality of reporting is appalling. In the news from Monday 25 January 2016 (listed on SBS as "Russian News 26 January"), there was a segment titled "Warsaw against the EU". It had two short interviews with politicians from the fringe of Polish politics: Janusz-Korwin Mikke, introduced as a "veteran politician", a pro-Russian, anti-EU, far-right nationalist, and Krzysztof Bosak a very young and unknown far-right National Movement politician, presented as an "expert".
Oleg Nemenskij, a "political scientist", said that Poles do not like most: Ukrainians, Germans, Russians - in that order. Fact: CBOS poll from January 2015: Poles disliked most: Roma - 58% of Poles dislike them, Russians 50%, and Romanians 43% (commonly mistaken for Roma), the fourth group is Palestinians with 36%. No Ukrainians or Germans in the first three, just Russians, sorry Oleg. (*)
The segment showed Jacek Kurski - the new head of TVP, as president of Poland Andrzej Duda. I understand, after 10 years abroad all Poles look the same to me too. :-)
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| Jacek Kurski, he is not the President of Poland. |
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| Andrzej Duda, this is the guy you should have shown. |
It called Jarosław Kaczyński "the younger Kaczyński". Jarosław and Lech were twins. No Pole ever calls Jarosław the younger brother. We do not even know which one was younger, they were identical twins!
It said that after PiS took power, the EU flag was removed from the Polish parliament. Funnily enough, later they showed the parliament with the EU flag still there. (**)
There were other inaccuracies, fringe opinions stated as official state positions, and false accusations - for example about the alleged campaign to destroy Soviet Army monuments (***) in Poland. The whole segment was just a propaganda piece. Why is SBS showing that?
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(*) More details on the OBOP poll: dislike: ... Turks 36%, Jews 32%, and Ukrainians 32%.
To balance this, who Poles liked most in January 2015 according to OBOP? Italians 51%, Czechs 50%, Spaniards 49%, English 48%, Slovaks 48%. Other nations: Americans 44%, Germans 43%, Ukrainians 36%, Jews 28%, Vietnamese 25%, Russians 22%, Roma 18%.
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(**) The EU flags were removed from the government's press conference room.
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(***) Some controversial Soviet Army monuments are being removed in Poland, for example, a monument to Ivan Chernyakhovsky who helped NKVD arrest Polish Home Army officers in Vilnus in 1944. Local news about the event: http://www.polskieradio.pl/5/3/Artykul/1506136,Rosja-oburzona-likwidacja-pomnika-bohatera-ZSRR-Symboliczny-gest-w-Pienieznie