from
Florian Hassel, Warsaw
It is not every day that the editors of the most important newspaper in a country and its publishing board publicly accuse themselves of greed or stupidity, dismiss themselves with immediate dismissals and declarations of mistrust and utter words like “villains” and “canons”. But the Gazeta Wyborcza (GW) is not only the leading newspaper in Poland, but also sees itself as a combative spearhead of democracy and sees itself in the most serious crisis of its three decades of young history – not because of external enemies, but through its own publishers. The editor was fired without notice, the journalists fear a “taming” and the descent to the boulevard.