TVN24 reporter Agata Adamek was asked to leave the office of the Speaker of the Sejm by the Marshal's Guard. Reference was made to an ordinance introduced during the PiS era. Adamek noted that despite the order, the practice in this term was completely different and journalists talked to the marshal there many times. Questions about the rules of work of reporters in parliament also arose in connection with the regulation regarding media representatives in the Senate. Marshal Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska stated that “no restrictions have been introduced.” Szymon Hołownia also commented on the matter.
TVN24 reporter Agata Adamek wanted to talk to the speaker of the chamber in the Sejm on Tuesday Szymon Hołownia. However, she reported that she encountered some difficulties. She explained that she went closer to the marshal's office, where journalists had already talked to him many times. – The corridor leading to the Marshal's office has also been a corridor where we can ask MPs, including the Marshal, about various things. Moreover, the marshal eagerly took advantage of this opportunity to speak in front of his office, she pointed out.
Due to the fact that such a practice was common, the journalist also wanted to get Hołownia's comment there today and was waiting for him near the office. However, this time she was met with a reaction from the Marshal's Guard. She was asked to leave the office. When Adamek asked about the basis, the officer said that it resulted from the applicable ordinance.
After a while, the journalist and the officer were approached by another one, whom Adamek also asked why she should leave the corridor leading to the marshal's office. She also noticed that the marshal announced that journalists could stay in this place.
– The decision of the superiors – he replied.
– You mean the commander of the Marshal's Guard? – she asked.
– That's right, said the guard representative.
– Order No. 1 of the Speaker of the Sejm regarding access to and entry to the area subordinated to the Chancellery of the Sejm specifies where journalists may stay. There are three places where journalists can stay, added the first officer.
The order “was not changed,” but the approach was different
In a report on TVN24, the journalist explained what the order was about. – This is Ordinance No. 1 from the times of the rule of Law and Justice. Back then, when the famous curtain hung in the corridor leading to the office of the Speaker of the Sejm. Indeed, this order mentions only a few places where journalists can stay. The corridor where the Speaker of the Sejm's office is located is not on this list, Adamek explained.
– The order applies the same. It was not changed at the beginning of the new term, but the approach to this order was very liberal, as evidenced by numerous recordings of the Speaker of the Sejm in the vicinity of the Speaker's office – she emphasized.
Head of the Media Services Office: There is a place for journalists to work here. Not there
In the Sejm, Adamek asked Katarzyna Karpa-Świderek, spokeswoman for the Speaker of the Sejm and director of the Media Services Office of the Chancellery of the Sejm, about the situation. She informed her that the Marshal's Guard had asked her to leave the Marshal's office and asked whether this meant that the approach towards journalists was changing. – The approach towards journalists does not change. You still have the opportunity to walk wherever you could, including along the marshal's corridor. However, this is not a place to actually give interviews, to do hundreds of them – she replied. – We are asking for this not to happen, for there to be certain occupational hygiene, that's all – added Karpa-Świderek.
In response to the comment that Hołownia spoke to the media many times in front of the office, the spokeswoman replied that because he was asked for a comment there, he gave it. – You put me in a very difficult situation because I wasn't there at that moment, so I don't know what the situation was like. However, we sometimes ask you very politely to, for example, make room somewhere so that we don't have to stand somewhere, the spokeswoman continued.
Adamek noted that only she and the camera operator were in the corridor. Her interlocutor commented that “as a rule, this is not a place for journalists to work.”
– At the beginning of the term, you said, when the current coalition and the parliamentary majority took power, that the rules would be different. I remember the rules that prevailed in the times of Law and Justice and I was also chased out from outside the office of the Speaker of the Sejm. It wasn't supposed to be like this – continued Agata Adamek.
– From what I remember, editor, during the times of Law and Justice there was a curtain there and you couldn't even enter there – replied the director of the Media Services Office.
The TVN24 reporter pointed out that whether there is a curtain now or not seems to be irrelevant. – Because I can't be there anyway. I can stand at a distance that does not allow me to ask the Speaker of the Sejm any questions, said Adamek.
– That's your opinion. This is not a place for journalists to work. (….) We are working on a new room for journalists so that you will have full comfort. We have prepared new social facilities so that you can have tasty coffee – said Karpa-Świderek.
In reaction to this, Adamek declared: – I don't mean coffee. I'm a journalist who doesn't need coffee at all. I can cope without coffee. However, I cannot cope with the situation of lack of consistency between what politicians promise and the reality that then affects us.
– Let me put it this way, here (at the journalist's tables – editor) there is a place for journalists to work. There (in the Marshal's corridor – editor) there is no place for journalists to work. However, you can use it, treat it as a passage, as a passage, because that is what it is dedicated to – replied the spokeswoman.
Regulation regarding work in the Senate hall
Adamek also informed that on Tuesday she encountered yet another situation that raised questions about the work of journalists in parliament. This time it was about the Senate. – We were also asked to leave the place where we always recorded senators and politicians, i.e. the hall located in front of the door to the Senate chamber – she said on TVN24.
The Marshal's Guard showed her a document in which it was written that – as she read – “filming interviews and statements on the first floor of the hall in building A is possible after obtaining the consent of the Speaker of the Senate.” The date on the document was July 26, 2024. – So if I don't have the consent of the Senate Marshal, I can't record senators here? – the journalist asked the officer. He confirmed it.
The TVN24 reporter explained that this document is an order of the Speaker of the Sejm, because “it is the Speaker of the Sejm who decides what the work of journalists looks like in the entire Sejm complex.” It was signed by Hołownia, but also by the Speaker of the Senate, Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska.
– With her consent, the ordinance (was) changed, which means that we can no longer conduct interviews in the Senate hall (…). The ordinance is from July, but it entered into force on September 1. Today I talked to senators and asked them whether they liked the new organization of journalists' work in the Senate. And even Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska's party colleagues said that they would like to talk to the Speaker of the Senate because our presence there does not bother them at all. There are even those who took advantage of this presence, thus having the opportunity to appear in the media, which is not without significance for politicians, said Adamek.
Exchange of words between Adamek and Kidawa-Błońska
The journalist posted an entry on the X website describing the situation that happened to her in the Senate. It was commented by Kidawa-Błońska.
As the Speaker of the Senate wrote, “nothing has changed regarding the recording of senators.” “No restrictions have been introduced. The only change in the case of the Senate is the coordination of conferences organized directly in front of the Cabinet,” she wrote.
Adamek replied to Kidawa-Błońska, sharing a photo of a fragment of the ordinance shown to her by the Marshal's Guard. She pointed out that “according to the guards, the situation was changed by this new provision.”
Hołownia: There are no restrictions. There is an informal agreement that we do not camp outside the offices
In the evening, Szymon Hołownia spoke at a press conference in Pleszew, where he was asked about the situation of journalists in the Sejm and Senate. – I don't know about it in the Senate, because I am the Speaker of the Sejm and I don't know what restrictions or regulations on this matter exist in the Senate – he replied. However, he assured that “there are certainly no restrictions on working in the Marshal's corridor in the Sejm.” – There is an informal agreement, which has been respected to this day, between journalists and the marshals working in the marshal's corridor that we do not camp out in front of offices, that we normally make appointments in groups of hundreds, we normally arrange talks anywhere – he continued. – I also often give hundreds in the Marshal's corridor and in other places in the Sejm. I don't have the slightest problem with it. But so far we have agreed and respected each other's rules that I always speak out, or almost always, when the media needs it. However, we try to maintain a certain ecology of our cooperation – we work in the same space – said the Marshal.
– I clearly and firmly state that there are no prohibitions on journalists working in the Marshal's corridor in the Sejm – he said. He noted that “there is an expectation that we will respect each other, that we will inform each other about our intentions, because we often spend several hours together in this building every day.”
– And I am convinced, as a marshal who has probably given more statements to the media in the Sejm so far than my two predecessors combined during the entire eight years of their terms, that we are able to develop such solutions – added Hołownia.
Zgorzelski: I will ask a question at the next meeting of the Sejm Presidium
On Tuesday late afternoon, the Deputy Speaker of the Sejm Piotr Zgorzelski from the Polish People's Party (cooperating with Szymon Hołownia's Polska 2050 as part of the Third Way) was asked in “Tak jest” on TVN24 about the reasons for this change in relation to the work of journalists in the parliament building.
– I will ask this question at the next meeting of the Sejm Presidium. (…) If the editor wishes, I will respond immediately after the presidium, said Zgorzelski.
– For me, this is an incident that may have been created without the initiative of Marshal Hołownia, who has always been in favor of transparency and openness. But I am curious about the answer myself and I will inform the public opinion – he added. He also assessed that “gradual weaning of journalists or keeping journalists away from information always ends badly for those who do it.”
What did Hołownia say after being elected marshal?
Hołownia was elected Marshal on November 13, 2023 in a vote in the plenary hall. He then spoke to the MPs and said, among other things: – In the coming days, I will invite journalists with the oldest experience in the Sejm to help me reopen the Sejm wisely for them.. We will restore press breakfasts with the Speaker and regular briefings at which media representatives will be able to find out what is happening in this chamber. I want to try to reach out to those who still have little faith in democracy.
Main photo source: TVN24