Adam Michnik, Poland
By Global Journalist Staff Posted Sat, Apr 1 2000
Adam Michnik, former dissident, historian, writer, lecturer and one of Poland’s leading journalists, has been the editor in chief of the first independent Polish daily newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, since its inception in 1989. A life-long activist for human rights, he was detained many times between 1965 and 1986, spending a total of six years in prison for his opposition to the communist regime. An adviser to the Solidarity trade union federation during the 1980s, he was a negotiator for the Solidarity team during the Round Table negotiations of 1989 between representatives of the government, Solidarity and other groups that brought an end to communist rule in Poland.
Michnik was born Oct. 17, 1946. After the March protests of 1968, he was expelled from the University of Warsaw and imprisoned from 1968 to 1969. Complet-ing his degree in history at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan in 1975, he helped found the Workers’ Defense Committee (KOR) in 1976 and participated as a lecturer in the “Flying University,” an organization that brought intellectuals and worker activists together in underground seminars.
After General Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law in 1981, suspending Solidarity and interning its leader, Lech Walesa, Michnik was again imprisoned from 1981 to 1984 and from 1985 to 1986, but he continued to advocate democracy and civil society after his release. Following the 1989 Round Table talks, he served as a member of the first non-communist Sejm (Lower House) from 1989 to 1991.
Michnik co-founded Gazeta Wyborcza (Electoral Gazette) in 1989 “as the first free newspaper from the Elbe to Vladivos-tok.” Although originally launched to support Solidarity’s election bid, Michnik was quick to assert its editorial independence. The first issue stated that “this newspaper has come into being as a result of the Round Table agreement, but we are publishing and editing it ourselves, and we alone are accountable.”
“We have always been proud of our roots in the opposition, KOR and Solidarity,” Michnik said on the 10th anniversary of Gazeta Wyborcza. “But we never wanted to be either an organ of Solidarity or part of it. For we wanted to work for a democratic Poland, and not for successive Solidarity union bosses or for any other political party. ... We believe that the prerequisite of our credibility is independence, political and material,” Michnik said. “We have built up this independence over 10 years, receiving many compliments and diatribes along the way.”
Today, Gazeta Wyborcza is Poland’s best-selling daily newspaper, and it continues to broaden its market share with an ever-wider array of supplements, a weekend color magazine and several regional editions. Gazeta Wyborcza has become one of the most respected dailies in Europe, but Michnik is characteristically modest about his own role in the success of the paper.
“I have always emphasized that I personally take full responsibility for all the mistakes and failings of Gazeta, but I am reluctant to take responsibility for its successes,” he said. “The success of Gazeta is the work of my colleagues, many women and men who were able to organize a modern editorial board and a well-functioning enterprise. My own input is limited to the fact that I didn’t manage to ruin it all.”
A former member of the IPI Executive Board, Michnik is the author of countless essays, articles and books, including Letters from Prison and Other Essays, a collection of his smuggled-out writings. He has received numerous awards in recognition of his eloquently articulated advocacy of democracy and press freedom, including the French PEN Club Freedom Award in 1982, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 1986 and the OSCE Prize for Journalism and Democracy in 1996.