A year ago, we revealed that Bolesławiec mayor Piotr Roman paid PLN 4,920 from the municipal budget for a five-part interview with himself. At the time, people were not told that their questions would be used to prepare promotional material. The production was handled by Marcin Marczewski’s company, and the questions were read from a sheet of paper—with no follow-up questions and no confrontation.

It turns out that other people associated with Mayor Piotr Roman also benefited from the same promotional formula—without paying from their personal funds.

PKS paid for Jaźwiec

Łukasz Jaźwiec, director of Bolesławiec’s PKS, appeared in two programs about the municipal company’s activities. The production costs were covered by the PKS budget—a total of PLN 2,507.97. Although Jaźwiec ran in the elections, he did not appear as a candidate, but as the head of the county-owned company.

Filipowicz promoted BOK

Kornel Filipowicz, director of the Bolesławiec Cultural Centre, also appeared in two episodes in which he discussed BOK’s operations. The institution he headed paid PLN 1,968 for the programs. Filipowicz did not participate in the elections and appeared solely as the director of a cultural institution.

Basiak and MZGK

The third case concerns Krzysztof Basiak, head of the Municipal Communal Services Company. MZGK paid PLN 1,210 for one interview and an informational segment—also in a promotional format, in which Basiak discussed the activities of the company he heads. Like Jaźwiec, he was also running in the elections.

All the programs were hosted by Kazimierz Marczewski—the same person who conducted the earlier four interviews with Mayor Roman (the fifth was hosted by someone else alongside Roman). The money for the production went to his son’s company, Marcin Marczewski of Kraków.

People did not know it would be promotion

Marczewski’s editorial team collected questions from residents but did not tell them that the interviews would be paid for by the interviewees themselves—with money from the companies they headed. The answers could not be commented on, and Jaźwiec, Filipowicz and Basiak could read the questions well before the programs.

This form of “conversation” lacked the characteristics of journalistic inquiry—the host read the questions from a sheet of paper, asked no follow-ups and did not react. The materials posed as independent interviews but were in fact paid promotion, just before the elections.

Poor viewership

Despite the spending, the materials attracted little interest. More than a year after publication:

  • the program with Krzysztof Basiak had been viewed 414 times,
  • the ones with Łukasz Jaźwiec—399 and 187 times,
  • and those with Kornel Filipowicz—291 and 193 times.

In total, these activities cost more than PLN 5,600, while their actual reach—and purpose—remain questionable.

If you want to see a reliable ranking of Bolesławiec portals, visit the page with 2024 viewership data.