A No. 1 hit vanished from Poland’s charts – it’s not going quietly
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Here's how: https://scontent-waw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/fr/cp0/e15/q65...
I bit the bullet and temporarily tuned my radio to something unrelated. There's a crowdfunded alternative, though, picking up steam: Nowy Świat, #1 on patronite.pl (Polish lookalike of Patreon) with 630KPLN/mo pledged already, due to start airing in June. Their staff is composed mostly of Trójka's exiles.
But salaries are lower then that. With data from Wikipedia for Gross Average Wage the sum goes to around $646k. Also I believe Polish artists will earn much less than their American counterparts.
As of a few days ago, a certain minority political faction is suddenly very interested in high-sounding principles and will talk your ear off about freedom of speech and young-threatened-Democracy with a capital-D etc. Probably there is a lot of this downthread. Without making any claims about this issue itself, I will observe three interesting metacharacteristics of the situation:
0) This same suddenly-principled faction has a long record of happily supporting soft-and-hard censorship whenever it suits their politics and gleefully condemning other people's speech if they don't like it. A nonzero fraction (but of course not all) of the condemnation here comes from the literal Polish Communist Party (and their modern, slightly-rebranded allies), aka the same people who brought us 50 years of totalitarian oppression and censorship-enforced-by-secret-police-abductions. This strikes me as pretty rich.
1) Most ordinary Polish people know about this topic, but many don't find it anywhere near as scandalous as this breathless NYT article would have you believe. As far as I can tell this is not high on the list of pressing political issues for many regular people (despite a domestic Polish and foreign media blitz to the contrary).
2) State media is widely regarded as a running joke, known for its comically-hokey stories such as "Polish citizenry rejoices as Potassium exports rise 12%" (made up example but catches the tone). There are literally a small handful of state-funded radio and TV stations and arguably a semiaffiliated newspaper or two, in varying states of cheesiness. Meanwhile there are gallons and gallons of antigovernment media, most of which is overwhelmingly more competent than the allegedly State-controlled media, with super-slick hollywood production values and content which is precision-engineered to be engaging. In light of this disparity I find claims about "all encompassing State propaganda mind control" to be rather dubious.
Or polityka.pl, which is kinda like the New Yorker magazine of Poland, insofar as it is a weekly upper-middlebrow witty news magazine with giant circulation, unabashedly opposing the country's executive.
If you want a TV show or videos on the internet you could have a look at fakty.tvn24.pl. But really there are tons, these are just off the top of my head and the list goes on for miles.
- your comment is not at all unpolitical, even though you claim to not "have a political horse in this race." Your dismissal of the opposition to PiS as hypocritical, small, and a "certain minority" is deeply political.
- saying "evil people X" say Y thing, therefore Y thing is false/unworthy/etc. is a fallacy. Saying that (former) communists are upset about the removal of the song has no bearing on whether this is an important story or not
- all Polish people I know (my in laws and Polish friends) know about this and think it's a big deal. Yes, they live in Poland. I don't have a clear overview of all Polish newspapers, but those that I saw definitely ran the story prominently. It's also been big is Polish social media. This story made waves in Poland.
- criticizing all Polish state media in a general fashion when this story is a bout Trójka specifically is absolutely fallacious. Trójka has not praised Potassium exports or had similar stories; even the NYT piece says that Trójka has been a special case among Polish media as far back as 1982.
- there can be no doubt about the current ruling party's intention of trying to subsume all relevant media under its control. Examples [1][2][3]. Lots of pieces have been written about this, and it's nothing new. It's not even going on in secret.
Your tone is not apolitical with respect to the situation in Poland, and the content of your writing isn't either. Claiming you're apolitical is disingenuous. That's why I think you deserved the downvote.
Me, I'm against PiS, and similar movements throughout Europe. I believe they are harmful to their countries, and to the European project.
[1]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/31/polands-government-is-s... [2]: https://www.publicmediaalliance.org/threats-to-media-indepen... [3]: https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/04/21/polands-ruling-l...
FWIW I am not a PiS supporter, have never voted for them, and likely will not vote for them in the forseeable future.
I find these two comments a bit hard to reconcile, as the second comment implies that this person is not an “American” with no “political horse in this race”.
By "no horse in this race" I mean that I am a neutral bystander in the complicated, very-passionate multidirectional culture war centered on the PiS party, and whenever possible I try to avoid arguments like this one.
A fiend of mine send me some clips recently and hand to heart I was 100% sure it was a voice over.
It ridiculous to the point of parody. I have no idea who could possibly believe in any of it (unless braindamaged).
But how could you be such a spineless waste of air to vomit such s* on the air and call yourself a journalist. That is even more shocking.
We have all seen Fox News bending reality, but what happens in Polish national TV is calling black - white and white - black.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/phil-donahue-chris-matthews-m...
What about Peter Arnett?
https://www.foxnews.com/story/nbc-severs-ties-with-journalis...
But I guess the Americans have 'private' media where 'market forces' prevent criticism of US government policy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
One can be critical of behavior in one country and also not like the behavior of a country you also happen to reside. The linker is not the NY Times :)
Edit: And you don't have to profess the dislike of similar behavior in the same article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Bestseller_List
In particular the first paragraph under Controversies
It's just ironic that the NYT has an article about the polish chart... that behaves just like their book chart.
Note that Trump is actively trying to reorient VOA to be Trump-friendly right now.
And Trump's attack on VOA is failing because VOA is protected from him by law.
The situation with PBS is similar but a bit more complicated to tease apart. The majority of PBS's funding comes from member station dues, but it also does receive some tens of millions from the federally-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) each year, and the CPB also supports those member PBS stations. PBS and the CPB also work together on program acquisition and development.
The control isn't exerted in the same way, but it is certainly there.
As an American, I suggest you try some foreign media. Unless you’re uncomfortable hearing something outside your safe space.
Got some proof of this?
> I suggest you try some foreign media
I read plenty of foreign media, I'm not nationalistic or racist like you.
Bully for you!
The comment above you are referencing is simply saying there is not the same type of media operating in US and therefore it is impossible that the same thing is happening in US. There might be other nasty stuff happening but exactly the same.
It's just that American citizens don't see a problem with partisan information or censorship as long as it is privately served.
For those that don't like to read there's a brief animated YouTube introduction voiced by Amy Goodman of "Democracy Now!":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M
This theory, backed by enormous volumes of evidence and case studies, is very much worth a read. It explains how propaganda is instituted in the US without overt censorship.
We use government officials to lobby overseas on corporation's behalf, issue new currency to make sure they stay afloat, entrust them with water, power, roads, waste management and schools. They make our war supplies, run the mercenaries for the wars, manage the state's finances through private banks and run elections. Some even have charters to manage entire cities (such as the Irvine Group).
We use state apparatuses to defend them overseas. They run the media and manage such mundane state functions as traffic citations and parking fees. Corporations are part of the state apparatus.
You could say corporations aren't part of the state apparatus because you've personally decided not to classify them as such ... but that's just playing some theatrical dictionary game, it's not real. If something runs the elections, fights the wars, manage the municipal services and finances, then they are the state, that's what the word means. Corporations are part of the unelected bureaucratic administrative state.
We have state media, we just call it "corporate media" but that's merely a rhetorical slight of hand.
All the major media companies are part of the state. If you think the NYTimes, Disney, CBS, etc are not part of the state, then you really haven't been paying attention.
The difference is that in some countries the state uses the government to control propaganda, in other countries the state uses the political party to control propaganda, in other countries the state uses money to control propaganda and in other countries it's a mishmash of some or all of these controls.
Also, there is a difference in level of control. Some assert total control while other have degrees of control to create an illusion of free press.
In Poland an anti-government song disappears from the playlist, and it's a huge scandal. In US a convicted pedophile with own pedo-island, and connections all over the elites, media and government disappears from the prison cell in a dubious suicide where all cameras stopped working and many other "coincidences" happened and not much happens about it.
In US the government is the puppet of the ruling class so there's really no need for it to do any fighting. It just does what it was told (paid) to do. And the media have almost full control over the public opinion, so there is no need for any silly black-listing censorship. All they have to do is to gently steer the attention of the public elsewhere.
i know what you're talking about tho. pretty much, this means the topic is well discussed and not subject to censorship.
It's a cute little "conspiracy theory" for the masses to play with, nobody in power is threatened in the slightest. In many ways it's self-neutered by turning that phrase into a mindless meme.
The soft censorship means we've seen effectively zero mainstream investigation into any of the glaringly obvious questions.
No need to censor any truth anymore, if it simply does not reach anyone because it is burried in a huge pile of garbage information, most people have not the time sorting it through.any
Discussions isn't the point though. Articles in big newspapers and TV stations, not forum chitchat.
A notable case was the unraveling of the whole Iraq WMD story, and especially the yellowcake affair. I suspect that this was notable precisely because well-informed Americans could see BBC et al covering it via the internet while the US media largely ignored it, though; pre-internet cases of media self-censorship would have been far less visible.
In an environment where the Guardian, Daily Mail and various other foreign papers have massive US market penetration via the internet, this sort of thing is probably way less useful; media self-censorship will only be useful for the section of the population who get their news solely from TV (or where the entire global media colludes to censor something, but that seems far less likely).
This was major news in the US in my recollection. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/what-i-didn-t-fin... is about the yellowcake.
A pro-war pundit then outed Wilson’s spouse as a CIA employee and there was a widely publicized special counsel investigation into the matter of the outing that was discussed a lot at the time.
So I don’t really understand the idea that the US media as a whole was self-censoring this...
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/12/israel-white-house...
Please, it's much older than the US. Better examples of young (and failing) democracies would be Russia and Central Asian -stan countries.
a More concrete example is "On February 8, 2018, it was reported that Qatari leaders had reassured the leaders of Jewish American organisations that Al Jazeera would not be airing its companion documentary series on the Israel lobby in the United States. According to Haaretz, the Qatari government had reportedly hired Republican Senator Ted Cruz's former aide Nicolas Muzin to open communications channels with Jewish American organisations. Earlier, the network had sent letters to several American pro-Israel organisations informing them that their employees would appear in the documentary. These letters generated speculation that the Qatari government had reneged on its earlier promise to block Al Jazeera from screening the controversial documentary which, like the earlier British series, had utilized clandestine footage and recordings of pro-Israel activists." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lobby_(TV_series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Bestseller_List
In 1983 (as part of a legal argument) the Times stated that the list is not mathematically objective but rather editorial content.
He was therefore perhaps the only person entering the graveyard on that day.
In this context, "Your pain is greater than mine" simply refers to the common citizen vs Jaroslaw. One can't go to see the grave's of his family/friends etc., whilst the other can.
Jarosław's visit to the cemetery (together with members of the government) was another publicity stunt. If they just wanted to pay the respects to the deceased probably no one would care and they could easily get away with minor restriction violation. Instead they made it an official visit and broadcasted it in government-controlled TV.
Of all the air crashes in history this got to be the most “convenient” does not mean it was a bomb but damn you got to wonder just how many corks of champagne got popped at Putin’s house when it happened.
Having observed from pretty short range how the events unfolded after that, they did jump on the insanity when polish government turned out to be weak against it. That would be when the corks got popped, IMO.
Moral of the story: there's nothing spectacular about the song, it's even intentionally campy. The criticism is veiled and words polite. It was likely the fact that the message took the form of a song that made it intolerable. And the Trójka radio station folded not really because of a single song, rather it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
It's clearly a critizicm of governing party approach to lockdown and martyrology. They clearly set the rules to avoid limitations and even avoid the rules. They also lost most relatives in 2010 crash including twin brother of the leader of governing part, then president in office. Though he doesn't hold any formal position he is most influential. So he used position to visit the grave, they made it an official celebration.
So the song is just a criticism of perceived abuse of political power. Normal stuff with out any judgment.
The funny thing starts at the radio. President of Polish Radio (national broadcaster) is politically appointed. They appointed CEO for this station. The station were run by people with 15-30 years within, so all govts basically, even when current party was in charge some time ago. Some of the redactors left, were forced out or let gone before. The chart is published for like 30 years, by same few people. The CEO knew the critic song will top it. Blocks whole programm, says vote was a fraud by chart leaders and listeners had right to know chart was bothched, this is almost a literal citation. Chart runners leave because of accusations. Their friends leave over all of recent managment. The station's programme director, which wasn't politically swapped showed SMS from the night before chart was supposed to be aired from polit CEO "To make sure the song they talked about is not aired". Supposedly CEO wanted redactors to sing paper saying vote was erroneous, they refused, so CEO blocked the air resulting in censorship. It's basically PR Chernobyl, and it was most iconic station in Poland.
Sorry for long text but it's still a summary leaving few details. It shows overreaction blown out of proportions and mindset of people placed as directing managers. They could let the chart run and deal with it later but they choose worst option for some reason. They wanted to appease the party or were afraid of consequences of letting it air. Even the party leadership voices were saying it's poor decision making or straight up unacceptable, even if the song is crap.
So, there's nothing in the song, it was the people appointed to run the thing.
***** ***
One would be forgiven for thinking that the expression "kurwa mać" both fits the pattern and the current situation.
We'll see how this year's presidential elections, which should be held... eventually(?) will go.
Let's hope we can bring some balance to the political scene in Poland.
Right now the most popular rapper (measured by streams)is Tekashi 6ix9ine, a controversial artist who raised concerns recently over being cheated out of the #1 Billboard Hot 100 spot.
It broke the record for most youtube views in a day (43.5 million) and also fastest to reach 100 million (71 Hours).
It also hasn't received ONE radio spin, for comparison every song above it has at least 20 million.
It also has been banned from every major Spotify playlist.
After questioning the credibility of the Hot 100 ranking methodologies multiple top artists have come to Billboards defense (Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, etc.) even causing billboard itself to release a statement.
It's resulting in a Streisand effect of people wanting to see what's this song/artist that the institutions are trying so hard to suppress from the public.
That's what wikipedia says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_the_Nine_Trey_Gangste...
Almost every single new genre of music from hip hop, rock and roll, country etc. went through a stage of condemnation by the previous generation that didn't approve of it before being finally accepted.
Just history repeating itself.
Up to a few decades ago your comment could be referencing a black/gay person instead and no one would bat an eye.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/books/curtis-dawkins-gray...
one job
https://pitchfork.com/news/billboard-responds-to-tekashi-6ix...
6ix9ine's songs are not very radio-friendly, and from a quality standpoint, have been universally panned by critics. The fact that he was convicted of a felony (use of a child in a sexual performance) does not help his commercial appeal.
On the other hand, Kazik Staszewski's "Your Pain Is Better Than Mine" is a song that criticizes Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the largest Polish political party. It was censored by a state-run radio station. The two incidents are not comparable.
Are said critics in his target demographic, or is this just another case of old people not understanding the youth?
Edit:
> I think [his criminal convictions are] enough to not play his music on the radio.
I agree with that.
I think that alone is enough to not play his music on the radio.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_the_Nine_Trey_Gangs...
You really, really can't.
Well, US has a problem with obscenities for instance, which are erased from court records, even if everyone in attendance is an adult and should be able to handle some cuss words. I know US really buys into the "land of the free" meme, but like the parent post said - the line exists in every country, the question is - are the people free to move the line? People of Poland have decided that the atrocities of the holocaust were so great that denying them should be a crime - but the key word here is decided, as in - were free to do so. People of America have decided that the line lies elsewhere - but let's not kid ourselves, the line absolutely exists. You might not go to prison for voicing opinions, but there will be backlash for certain ones which would be absolutely fine in other countries. The fact that US ranks 45th in the list of countries ranked by the freedom of press should say something.
This is not a universal practice. In fact, I'm inclined to say it's rather rare.
A case that immediately comes to mind is Cohen v. California. It concluded that governments can't ban the use of the word "fuck" in public. The word is not censored in the opinion.
http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep403/usrep403015/usr...
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constitution_is_not_a_suic....
If not, then what was the actual purpose of the law?
Yes, there are still facists in Poland - does that mean the law was pointless? Of course not.
And of course I don't think I have to point out that you can be a fascist and not deny holocaust, so this law wouldn't do anything in that case.
But ignoring that, you appear to be saying that it's significantly worse to deny the Holocaust, than to be a fascist, seeing how the law doesn't apply to fascists who "moved on with the times"?
"This guys is a bad hombre and so we should limit his freedom of speech" is clearly not objective. The line is very fuzzy, which is exactly the problem with it. Is the idea that we should limit the speech of all felons, even after they served their time? Or is it just sex offense felons? Or just rappers with face tattoos? Where does one propose we draw a line that can be objectively applied and would limit this guy's freedom of speech?
If you don't consider these "free speech", then you're already drawing a line.
That is obviously very different from saying "I don't like this person so we should limit their freedom of speech even though they're not deliberately misleading anyone".
The point is that you should be trying to establish policy that doesn't come back to bite you in the ass when the prevailing winds change. Saying that you're not allowed to say things that 1. you know aren't true and 2. damage others, is a fairly objective standard. "This guy is a felon so we should limit his speech, regardless of what he is saying" is not.
Would you pass a law that makes all lying illegal? Why not? Does speech have to directly damage someone? Financially, emotionally, what? What threshold of damage is punishable? Couldn't one argue that promoting communism "damages others"? The Secretary of Defense announcing a fake foreign invasion should probably be illegal, but a random drunk person claiming "the Chinese are invading" probably shouldn't be. So there's a line somewhere between those two people, where is it?
It's only perjury if you knowingly lie, which (when under oath) damages the integrity of the justice system. It's only libel if you tell a deliberate falsehood and it damages someone else directly. etc.
I thought Trójka is a public (and thus government sponsored and controlled) radio station, no?
* the previous known case of censorship is dated to 1984, on the same list with the same man behind the microphone. The band Maanam has been banned from public media so he played the drum intro of one of their songs ("To tylko tango") looped for the entire length of their hits on the list.
Except the "we" in your statement is defined totally arbitrarily. To you, "we" doesn't include the millions of people who listened to his music and like it. Why don't they get to draw this free speech line?
Forgive me for this aside, but do you know where I can read more about trolling techniques (of the non-fishing variety)?
Don't you see the irony in this statement? Everyone is free to say what they want except what you or the government deem to be wrongthink. That does not sound like a free or open society to me.
If that's false, then it's irrelevant. If it's true then the established response is to lock him in concrete box for 25 or more years. In neither case is censorship justified.
You sure left out a lot of salient detail in an effort to equate this diss track with a political document.
A racketeering rapist in a different country being delatformed isn't relevant to the President of Poland blocking criticism of his misbehavior from appearing in the media.
That being said this kind of reaction is unprecedented.
The song in question here actually ended up in the fourth place, was placed on 1st deliberately - it was kind of a political statement by the show producer.
One really has to be naive to believe in what you posted. Really.
As for the "bribery"... well, they found a no-name wedding singer of dubious reputation claiming that. Unless one is firmy behind the party, pretty much haven't heard anyone believing that line.
It's why they switched to classic "he was State Security informant" or "we're removing (post-)commies" (remember, in PiS newspeak "post-communist" covers "anyone who is against PiS" and is supposed to imply that they are actually communist. Fuck logic.)
As for "he was State Security informant" - that's really important factor to consider because it tells a lot about person's character. I mean what kind of scumbag would voluntarily provide information that might put people who did nothing wrong, other than oposing communist government, in jail, or worse yet, killed by "unknown perpetrators"? And for what - money, chance to advance his career? Once an asshole, always an asshole.
So who is a bigger asshole? Accused without evidence, or someone for whom we have explicit documentation of "vigorously defending government against revolutionaries"?