Participants:
Commune adminiStratorS:
kaziMiera tarkowska (coMMune adMinistrator of the year 2006), kleszczów coMMune, łódzkie province;
ryszard gliwiński, zaMość coMMune, luBelskie province; czesław Marian zalewski (coMMune adMinistra-tor of the year 2010), sterdyń coMMune, Mazowieckie province .
media rePreSentativeS:
Maria Bartczak, stanisław jĘdrzejewski, ryszard Miazek, [andrzej zalewski] .
in Europe and the biggest power plant – as well as go down to the pit and see the unusual countryside.
The next speaker to take the floor was Ryszard Gliwiński. He explained that the Zamość commune is lo-cated around the city of Zamość and comprises 35 localities with almost 22 thousand inhabitants, agricultural areas, vast residential zones and Roztocze National Park. He un-derlined that building the image of communes was a task for both local authorities and the media. It should consist in showing the reality of the commune and the beauty of the Polish countryside. He quoted a few lines from the act on local government (article 7) concerning the role and tasks of commune authorities in propagating the idea of local government, implementing the program supporting citizen activity, fostering history, culture and tradition, rais-ing children and youngsters and promotrais-ing communes. He stated that it was necessary to give full information about the activities and undertakings of local governments and about European Union programs. At present, local authorities are aware of the importance of information. State authorities create information and manage it, i.e. pass it on, through local authorities. That is why representatives of communes seek co-operation with the media. Apart from traditional forms of propagating information, the inhabitants of the Zamość commune can also use the website and the local government bulletin – a monthly issued for the last 10 years in 2.5 thousand copies. At present, works on launching a commune e-newspaper, as well as other local govern-ment publications, are under way. The speaker expressed his interest in closer co-operation with the media, but he acknowledged that it is sometimes difficult. He admitted that the local media are more interested in the wages of the commune administrator and in the fact that he closes schools than in showing positive facts. A lot still needs to be done to improve the co-operation. Mr. Gliwiński finished by presenting a few publications about the commune and inviting to visit the beautiful, renaissance city of Zamość.
Czesław Marian Zalewski presented the Sterdyń com-mune. It is a very small commune, with only 4.5 thousand inhabitants. It is located in eastern Mazovia, near Sokołów Podlaski, in the Bug river region, in Natura 2000 area.
The annual budget is about PLN 10 million, however, the investment budget for 2010 amounted to over PLN 20 million. This situation was due to the investments carried out, financed from European programs. The commune is perceived as well-organized, in particular as far as infra-structure is concerned. What is particularly worth atten-tion is the volunteer fire service, which has as many as 13 units in the commune. In the opinion of the commune
administrator, firefighters are a social group whose rep-resentatives are very active in commune authorities, rural self government and village councils. They also become commune administrators. It is with these people that it is possible to achieve the most – they know how to think and how to talk, so the co-operation with them is satisfactory.
As for the co-operation with the media, he said it was very good. He underlined that it was possible to elaborate the methodology of presenting information in the local media in a manner that makes them edifying instead of discour-aging and allows to avoid cheap sensation. Furthermore, the commune issues an information bulletin (bimonthly) and “Sterdyniak” newspaper (quarterly). The information contained in these papers is often reprinted by supra-re-gional and (less frequently) national media. Mr. Zalewski also agreed with his predecessor stating that every mistake made by the commune administrator was quickly noticed and spoke of the TV series “Ranczo”, which shows the com-mune administrator as corrupted and the local government – as full of crazy persons, who are not always well-behaved.
He pointed out that such image of the commune office is injurious for this environment and for the persons who act differently. Furthermore, when the media give information on price relations, they only quote retail prices, omitting producer (farmer) prices. He finished by inviting to visit the commune and to see the beautiful palace complex.
Next, Ewa Jaska asked editor Andrzej Zalewski to give a couple of hints to younger journalists on how to write about rural communes and what to pay attention to.
[Andrzej Zalewski] said it was a difficult question, but at the same time he pointed out that the land outside the cities, the Polish agriculture and the Polish countryside are the greatest interests of his life. He reminded that he had already been working for agricultural media for 62 years.
In March 1949, having graduated from the Warsaw Uni-versity of Life Sciences, he wrote the first program for the Polish Radio and in 1959, he began his co-operation with the television. He assessed the program offer directed to the rural population by both public and commercial media as inadequate. He stated that it was still incomprehensible why the land outside the cities is treated by the central radio and television channels as something worse and uninteresting.
However, he also noticed changes occurring in this respect.
He gave the example of the program “Poranne Rozmaitości Rolnicze” (“Morning Agricultural Varieties”), which he launched in 1955 and which is still broadcast in the Polish Radio, still between 5 and 6 AM, since the management of the station is deeply convinced that it is then that farmers get up and it is only then that they can listen to the radio.
He said it was absurd – such broadcast time was justified 45 years ago, when farmers needed to milk cows manually.
He pointed out that today it is not farmers and agricultural workers who get up at 5 AM, but the persons who work in the city and need to spend their time in traffic jams com-muting to cities and towns. He summed up by repeating that more broadcast time for the country and for farming should be called for. He gave the example of EkoRadio and of the website www.niezapominajki.pl. He recalled that he had launched the website when he could not persuade the management of Program 1 of the Polish Radio to increase EkoRadio’s air time in spite of the growing interest in the broadcast. He claimed that the website proved what could be done now on the Internet, before breaking through to radio and television channels – how it was possible to show, describe and photograph the land outside cities, which faces tremendous challenges, grows very dynamically and is worth mentioning by the central media to a much larger extent than at present. He summed up by saying that firstly, patient persuasion is needed to convince local and central media stations to deal with the subject matter of the land outside cities and secondly – that the model of the program structure of public media needs to be changed completely.
We still follow Western Europe, where 2-3 per cent of the population is employed in agriculture, while Poland is still an agricultural country, even though the percentage of persons employed in agriculture is decreasing.
Ewa Jaska continued by asking how the land outside cities was described in foreign media and how such media pictured the country and agriculture.
Maria Bartczak agreed that influence needed to be exerted on the media. She pointed out that for several years, if anyone in the German media wrote about Polish agriculture, the text was usually illustrated by a picture of a horse and a plow. This image became deeply rooted in German consciousness. It was only owing to the efforts of diplomats, journalists and Poles living in Germany that this image no longer appears. However, news, coverage and feature articles on Polish agriculture still often contain the image of a toothless lady with a headscarf, as if such women were the only inhabitants of rural areas. She also recalled her co-operation with German television, during which she had to act against placing such pictures in the report prepared. Such images appear ever less often in media reports, however, they are still present. She praised the television series “Ranczo” and the idea to promote the Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agricul-ture, as well as the introduction of Steffen Möller, who played the role of a German farmer. Agricultural issues may
also be presented differently. For example, in Germany, a private television channel produces a cycle of broadcasts entitled “Bauer sucht Frau” (“Farmer Seeks a Wife”). It is a very popular program in which male farmers of various age choose between ladies who come to visit them and work in the yard, on the farm, and tend to the animals. Of course, it all looks idyllic as the program is usually filmed in the summer, but it changes the way the German rural areas are perceived. She finished by making a suggestion to the representatives of commune authorities to receive a group of German journalists for a couple of days.
Ewa Jaska also asked about the role of the public me-dia – how agriculture and the country should be shown, whether thematic blocs should be created, whether pro-grams about the land outside cities should be broadcast at different times or whether information on the subject should be included in all news programs.
Stanisław Jędrzejewski referred to the point made by [Andrzej Zalewski] by recalling BBC and the program
“Farming”, which begins at 5.45 AM and is 15 minutes long. However, this does not mean that this subject mat-ter is absent from other programs throughout the day. In the past, when he was the chief of Program 1 of the Polish Radio, he made a suggestion to his colleagues from the agricultural editorial staff to shorten the “Morning Agri-cultural Varieties” and to publish it throughout the day, in episodes of several minutes. However, this proposal was not well received. He also described the situation of Portugal, where he now lives, and the importance of adequate promo-tion of the country, in particular in times of crisis. Various things are happening in the country, sometimes we really have to do with a crisis situation, and it is important then to think about the image, both one’s own, of the central or local government and of the commune as a group. He recalled the advice of one of American specialists in public relations, who enumerated nine golden rules of dealing with people and with communities when one fulfills a certain function, including that of commune administrators. The golden rules apply to all the people, regardless of the func-tion they fulfill. First, the more they know you, the more they like you – under the condition that you deserve it.
Second, change – it is easier to change yourself than others.
Third, speak the language of actions – do not limit yourself to words, support them with actions. Fourth, keep up the good work, public opinion needs time to adapt to a change, give it the time to form. Fifth, truth is like oil, it always floats to the surface – half-truths and lies will one day be revealed. Even if they are published by the local press, or by the local media, which are outside the control of the
county administrator or of other authorities, it is better not to speak of such press. Six, support your money with heart. Money itself will never win you support – you need to get involved in a given cause. Seven, you may like cake, but it is with worms that you can catch fish. It is not your own preferences that you need to take into consideration, but the ones of the community. Eight, people take the most interest in their neighbors, so express your ideas and inten-tions in human categories. And the ninth, and perhaps the most attractive, golden rule: mind that floating log. Smart or easy solutions are not always effective.
Ryszard Miazek declared that it needed to be analyzed how inappropriate treatment and harmful image of the country influenced social relations and political decisions.
He referred to the paper presented at one of the confer-ences at the Polish Academy of Sciconfer-ences, concerning the changes that occurred in the Polish rural areas after the accession to the European Union. He stated that the pres-ent situation may be the source of real optimism since at present journalists have no reasons to succumb to the old prejudices. He admitted that the management system de-scribed in the paper was very good, but that it needed to be modified as times have changed. He reminded that there were many moments in Polish history when the develop-ment of agriculture encountered difficulties. In the early 1920s it was commonly thought that passing the land on to farmers would lead to the downfall of agriculture and to the starvation of the cities. At the time, this view was expressed in the media for many years. Then, it turned out that farmers were doing great and that they made excellent producers, cattle and horse breeders, etc. After World War II, it was a common conviction that the big farms are bet-ter than the small ones, so the image of the Polish country present in the media supported that view. After 1989, the situation changed. Now we have a real free market and in the present system, the situation of a given person (or a given commune or environment) depends on their profes-sional position, their output and their profesprofes-sionalism in dealing with the media. The present rural communes are an example of excellent organization, social approach and professionalism. The university graduates who work there are able to do anything and they find their place in rural communities without problems. He gave the example of a highly professional website in his family commune – a typically rural one. He also referred to the media, stating that they may be divided into religious, market and public ones. He pointed out that in each of these types of media rural communes are perceived from a different perspec-tive. For instance, market media are most inclined to treat
rural communes as an organized production zone, offering high-quality products which are also present on European markets. He finished by referring to the “Ranczo” television series. He recalled that commercial media had not been in-terested in it. Its production had only been possible thanks to the existence of public media.
Other participants of the conference joined in the discussion.
Tadeusz Barszczak asked the representatives of local authorities about the presence of certain persons, whose activity is the basis for forming social groups in rural en-vironment. Do such persons have a social activity back-ground?
Ryszard Gliwiński answered that many people active in the rural environment were local government activists, firemen, ladies from farmers’ wives’ associations and mem-bers of many youth groups. They were involved citizens, active in their local environment. He reminded that he had been a village administrator for 11 years and that he had worked in the county office for 31 years, that he knew people with a background in local social activity and that he co-operated with them while forming the basic local communities.
Krzysztof Karman underlined that when rural and agricultural questions were discussed in the media, the key issue was the program structure, i.e. allocating air time for this subject matter in administrative manner. It is very important, but a still more important issue is to make this subject matter interesting for all audiences. The country and agriculture should not be treated like a niche. An op-timum situation would be the one in which the main news broadcast featured, as the second or the third item, news on the country and agriculture – interesting, concerning rural population but appealing to all viewers. He pointed out that such propagation of this subject matter is already under way. The country is changing and constitutes ever better and more attractive material for journalists. Fur-thermore, in the recent years it turned out that agriculture was not only working the land, but also national tradition, regional dishes, beautiful, unspoiled nature, the possibility of relaxation etc. It is important, however, that the inter-esting information about the country reach journalists in an attractive form, fit for popularization. He claimed that the representatives of commune authorities present at the conference were an excellent media product. Through their achievements, through efficient management of social and economic structures, they showed how one could succeed.
Even though the activity of commune administrators was
related to the country and to agriculture, thanks to efficient management of such structure the information on what was happening in rural communes became interesting for all audiences. The more rural issues presented in broadcasts unrelated to the country or to agriculture, the fuller – and hence the better – the media image of the Polish country.
Piotr Wawrzeński directed the attention to product placement – a marketing tool which can be very useful in promoting rural communes, in particular in the present situation of saturation of media transmissions. However, the use of this tool in practice should consist in presenting not only agricultural issues, but also leisure activities, ecol-ogy, healthy food, etc. He also asked the commune admin-istrators about how they profited from the potential of the Internet and whether they were active on social networking sites. He claimed the local newspapers and bulletins which he was able to become acquainted with were a propaganda tool of the local authorities. He disagreed with the view, common in certain milieus, that the inhabitants of rural areas do not use the Internet.
Kazimiera Tarkowska claimed that the use of the po-tential of the network in the Kleszczów commune increases year by year. She estimated that there are no problems with Internet access in the commune, owing to, among others, the creation of the commune information centre.
The commune has its own internet provider and in every village the inhabitants may enjoy free Internet access in community centers or clubrooms. Most people, however, have Internet access in their homes. She informed that the commune had its website, publishing information such as resolutions and bulletins, and that it would soon be pres-ent in social media.
The commune has its own internet provider and in every village the inhabitants may enjoy free Internet access in community centers or clubrooms. Most people, however, have Internet access in their homes. She informed that the commune had its website, publishing information such as resolutions and bulletins, and that it would soon be pres-ent in social media.