The flood had one positive effect: the Polish mass media focused on the real problem, not on what one politician said about another politician. What I mean is that, due to the lack of really substantial food, newspapers, radio and television, that is, the mass media, and the Internet, are dealing with nonsense on a daily basis, that is, almost exclusively with what famous people think about themselves.
Thanks to the flood, the image of southern Poland living in fear of flooding has seeped into people's consciousness from the few serious newspapers that survived on the market, from televisions and radios. But this happened because floods click.
On the other hand, there is some logic to it: why bother with something that few people care about? Why talk, show or write about something that doesn't get clicked? In the name of what? Since the media, all media, live off of ads, i.e. clicks.
And the flood clicked wonderfully, and it clicked for a good cause. The flood reports were therefore doubly useful: they showed serious concern for the fate of those affected by the misfortune and were profitable. Even the war was lost to the flood Israel with Hezbollah, which has reigned supreme in serious media for several weeks. And as we know, nothing is more clickable, nothing attracts attention more than a good war. Every PR expert knows this well.
And the creators of the revealing film about a made-up war in some distant country in the Balkans, started only to save the presidency of a talented but reckless politician, knew this well. I really liked this film. And please don't accuse me of being prone to cynical jokes, because this is the truth about the power of all marketing, including political marketing, i.e. the industry that deals with confusing people's heads.
And here is the first example of the work of political marketers. When it was already clear that the flood was not a game, Prime Minister Tusk and his entourage appeared dressed in black. They gave up white shirts with rolled-up sleeves. These shirts are reserved for less gloomy occasions. And this is political marketing, or the knowledge of how to dress appropriately for the occasion.
But the flood obscured not only the usual nonsense that news portals feed on on a daily basis. It also obscured the serious political dispute caused by the dismissal of Robert Kostra from the position of director of the Polish History Museum.
The letter by Kazimierz Wóycicki and Bogusław Chrabota, published by “Rzeczpospolita” and the signatures of many serious people supporting the position contained in the letter, as well as the “evolutionary conservatism” of Prof. Matczak, which this wise man declares in an interview for “Plus Minus”, is an appeal not to make fools that will make it easier PiS return to power.
I share Matczak's diagnosis that Poland is a conservative country. However, not all conservatives liked the lawlessness practiced by PiS and they need to be fought for. And throwing out Kostra is a mistake, because it suggests that the political war that is going on in Poland today was mainly about positions, about making room for one's own man, and not about any substantive considerations.
Matczak warns against this. He calls the conservative electorate a “ticking bomb” and predicts that if – in order to please young progressives – we ostentatiously disregard the needs of conservative old people, PiS will return to power. I believe that we should curb the mindless triumphalism that is making itself felt in our ranks. It is therefore worth listening carefully to what Matczak has to say.
This is the only way to convince people to accept democracy, which is a system that is more difficult to practice than various forms of populism. Democracy requires more than flattering the nation. It requires coming to terms with the hard-to-accept truth that people are not the same. In my mother's generation, there was a saying: “some people like pierogi, and others like their feet sweating.” Today, we talk with reverence about respect for diversity. And that's exactly what it's all about.
Opinions expressed in columns for tvn24.pl do not constitute the position of the editorial office.
Maciej Wierzyński – TV journalist, publicist. After the introduction of martial law, he was dismissed from TVP. In 1984, he emigrated to USA. He was a scholarship holder at Stanford University and Penn State University. He founded the first multi-hour Polish language channel Polvision on the cable television “Group W” in the USA. In 1992-2000 he was the head of the Polish Section of the Voice of America in Washington. Since 2000 he has been the editor-in-chief of the New York “Nowy Dziennik”. Since 2005 he has been associated with TVN24.
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