Journalists in Poland tried to bribe interviewees: report

Journalists from Gazeta Wyborcza daily and private radio broadcaster RMF FM reportedly offered money to employees of bus maker Autosan in exchange for information and statements the reporters wanted to hear, according to Poland’s niezalezna.pl website.

The website quoted Ewa Latusek, chairwoman of Autosan’s Solidarity trade union organisation, as saying that reporters allegedly offered PLN 400 (EUR 94, USD 113) to company employees to get them to grant an interview and make specific “pre-designed statements.”

“There were situations in which Gazeta Wyborcza reporters offered money to employees to have them make specific statements. Those were amounts of the order of PLN 400, which is no small sum given our earnings,” Latusek said, as quoted by niezalezna.pl. “Thank God we have people who … would not be tempted by that money,” she added.

No comments were immediately available from either of the two media outlets, according to niezalezna.pl.

The website said that a media hubbub over Autosan is part of “fierce attacks by some opposition politicians, especially those linked with defence.”

Such politicians have “found a new excuse for attacks” by claiming that Autosan is having financial problems as a result of the missed army deal, while it reality the company has “revived” since a conservative government took power in Poland in 2015, according to niezalezna.pl.

Autosan recently narrowly missed a deadline for submitting bids in a tender for supplying passenger buses to the Polish army. The company failed to land a nearly PLN 30 million (EUR 7 million, USD 8.5 million) deal, according to reports.

Despite claims to the contrary, the missed order does not threaten Autosan's future, the state-run Polish Armaments Group (PGZ), which owns Autosan, has said.

Thanks to new orders from the civilian market, the company has guaranteed work for at least the next few months, PGZ said in a statement. (str/pk)

Source: niezalezna.pl