Poland tightens grip on independent media with oil firm s Polska Press takeover
The purchase of the media group by oil company Orlen, which is partially owned by the government, is a concern for dissidents and journalists.
A German media group sold Polska Press to a partially state-owned petrol company
Passauer Neue Presse newspaper. For strategic reasons, we have now decided to sell our Polish activities, said Alexander Diekmann, the managing partner responsible for the German media group Verlagsgruppe Passau s properties in Poland. He said the sale would allow his company to grow domestically within Germany.
Daniel Obajtek, the CEO of Poland s biggest oil company, Orlen, wrote on Twitter that the company was taking over Polska Press, making it the owner of 20 of the 24 regional newspapers in Poland as well as 120 regional weeklies and 500 news websites. Obajtek said this would give Orlen, which is 27.5% owned by the government, access to 17.4 million media consumers.