In 2024, PWiK Dolina Bobru, the water utility owned by the city, paid nearly PLN 13,000 to the private bolecinfo portal, based in Kraków, to promote the “I Drink Tap Water” campaign. A year later, the same portal was honored with the Bolesławiec Mayor Piotr Roman’s award in recognition of special merits in promoting the city—specifically for the “I Drink Tap Water” campaign.

Sounds unbelievable? This is probably the first case in Bolesławiec’s history in which an award was given not for something someone independently did for the city, but for something the city had already paid for. Perhaps this is a continuation of President Roman’s promotion on bolecinfo from the previous year. Piotr Roman then paid Marczewski’s company nearly PLN 5,000 from public funds for an interview with himself. Portal readers were encouraged to submit questions. However, the editorial team did not inform them that it would be promotional content, nor that people would not even be able to comment on the mayor’s answers.

After receiving the award, Marcin Marczewski boasted about it on the portal, assuring readers that his editorial team was an “independent medium” whose role was to “hold those in power to account.” This is certainly a new form of “independence,” in which money flows from the budget of a municipal company to a private firm, and then that same firm becomes the recipient of an award from the city. Unless “holding those in power to account,” in Marcin Marczewski’s understanding, means watching the hands that hand out checks and awards?

We have been promoting tap water for 12 years

PWiK commissioned our istotne.pl portal to produce public-service advertising raising awareness of drinking tap water from 2013 onward. We were paid for our work, but we did not come up with the idea of applying for an honorary award for promoting it. In 2013 and 2022, we produced two films promoting tap water.

Four awards for promoting Bolesławiec

Since we are talking about awards, istotne.pl journalists have received them four times. However, they always financed their activities for the city from their own funds.

In 2013, the istotne.pl portal received an award for images from webcams, thanks to which Bolesławiec can be watched live around the world. The portal purchased the cameras and financed their maintenance from its own funds.

In 2014, our journalist Grażyna Hanaf received the mayor’s award for the novel “Joachim.” The story was set against the backdrop of Gliniada, Blues nad Bobrem and the Bolesławiec Ceramic Festival.

In 2018, the statuette once again went to Grażyna Hanaf, this time for the program “How Does Hate Work?”, namely workshops she conducted free of charge in several dozen schools in Bolesławiec County. The free educational film about preventing cyberbullying, together with a lesson plan, is still one of the educational films on online aggression most frequently selected by teachers throughout Poland.

In 2020, Krzysztof Gwizdała once again received an award, this time for the idea and production of Christmas cards presenting the beauty of the city. The printing was financed entirely from Gwizdała’s funds, and the cards reached many places in Europe, America, Asia and Australia.

Who promotes most effectively?

Publicly available information shows that the istotne.pl portal is the clear leader in terms of visitor numbers. Data from the independent website similarweb.com, over which neither portal has any influence, shows that in 2024 the average monthly number of visits was as follows:

  • istotne.pl: 826,856 (2.75 times more than Bolec)
  • bolec.info: 300,304 (that is, 36% of istotne’s figure)