Polska Press

Polska Press sp. z o.o. publishes the largest network of regional and local newspapers and regional news websites in Poland. It is wholly owned by Orlen S.A., a publicly listed energy group in which the Polish State Treasury is the dominant shareholder.

Media assets

The group publishes 20 regional daily newspapers, 22 regional news services, the national news portal i.pl and more than 500 NaszeMiasto city services. It describes its own portfolio as some 600 internet services reaching 14 million internet users, produced by 1,800 employees and contributors and printed in its own printing plants.

The regional dailies are Dziennik Bałtycki (Gdańsk), Dziennik Łódzki, Dziennik Polski (Kraków), Dziennik Zachodni (Katowice), Echo Dnia, Express Bydgoski, Express Ilustrowany (Łódź), Gazeta Krakowska, Gazeta Lubuska (Zielona Góra), Gazeta Pomorska (Bydgoszcz), Gazeta Współczesna (Białystok), Gazeta Wrocławska, Głos – Dziennik Pomorza (Szczecin), Głos Wielkopolski (Poznań), Kurier Lubelski, Kurier Poranny (Białystok), Nowa Trybuna Opolska (Opole), Nowiny (Rzeszów), Nowości – Dziennik Toruński and Polska Metropolia Warszawska (Warsaw).

According to Polish Readership Research data, the regional dailies of Polska Press sold an average of 51,517 copies combined in the first half of 2026, a decline of 13.6 per cent from the corresponding period of 2025, with printed editions alone averaging 47,985 copies, down 13.2 per cent. Gazeta Pomorska led on 7,326 copies and Gazeta Współczesna recorded the lowest figure at 1,004; Kurier Lubelski, up 6.4 per cent, was the only title to gain. The publisher continues to face declining print sales while developing its regional digital services.

The magazine portfolio comprises Nasza Historia, Moto Salon, Moto Salon Classic, Strefa Biznesu, Strefa Agro, Tele Magazyn, Super Tele, TV Pilot and Tele Program.

Polska Press holds 53 per cent of Pro Media, the publisher of Nowa Trybuna Opolska, with the remaining stake held by Przedsiębiorstwo Związkowe Solpress. On 23 December 2025 Grupa Adamietz, owner of Wydawnictwo Silesiana, sent Orlen and the Polska Press supervisory board and management a letter of intent expressing interest in buying a majority stake in Pro Media, alongside an offer of cooperation agreements with the group. In September 2026 the company offered the title’s editorial building in Opole, a two-storey property from 1935 with nearly 1,700 square metres of floor space, for PLN 5.6 million.

The group’s printing division took over the printing of Gazeta Wyborcza in September 2025, after Agora closed its last printing plant.

Ownership and governance

The register of entrepreneurs records ORLEN S.A. as the sole shareholder of Polska Press sp. z o.o., holding all 12,000 shares with a nominal value of PLN 42 million, with the entry for that shareholder dating from 18 September 2023. The company’s registered office is at Domaniewska 45 in Warsaw, and the most recent register entry, number 142, carries data current as of 7 September 2026.

Orlen S.A. is a publicly listed company. Its annual report for 2025 records the State Treasury as holder of 579,310,079 of the 1,160,942,049 shares and votes, or 49.90 per cent of the share capital and of the voting rights, with Nationale-Nederlanden OFE on 5.17 per cent and other shareholders on 44.93 per cent. Polska Press is therefore indirectly state-controlled through its parent company, rather than wholly owned by the state.

The President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) consented to the concentration on 5 February 2021. PKN Orlen was entered in the commercial register as sole shareholder on 15 September 2021, after the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection had stayed the UOKiK decision on 8 April 2021 pending its ruling. Orlen paid PLN 210 million for the group, within which the value of the company was put at PLN 131 million.

The Commissioner for Human Rights challenged the consent on 5 March 2021, arguing that UOKiK had not examined the effect of the transaction on press freedom and on competition in the media market, had treated the press mainly as an advertising vehicle, and had not addressed Articles 14, 20 and 54 of the Constitution. The Warsaw Regional Court, sitting as the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection, dismissed the appeal on 7 June 2022, holding that non-economic criteria cannot be weighed under competition law and that media pluralism, while a constitutional value, falls outside the assessment of a concentration. The Commissioner decided on 3 August 2022 not to appeal in case XVII AmA 43/21 and called instead for a change in the law on media market concentration, so that an independent body could assess press concentration against pluralism and freedom of information.

Orlen replaced the board and executive management of Polska Press in March 2024. The register records Elżbieta Żuraw as a board member since 29 March 2024 and Mirosław Mazurowski since 23 April 2024, with a supervisory board of Magdalena Skowyrska, in office since 23 September 2021, Paweł Stefan Bzowski since 15 April 2024 and Piotr Bałdyga since 12 August 2024. The board had three members from spring 2024 until the end of July 2026, when president Zenon Nowak resigned.

Żuraw became acting president on 1 August 2026. She is a Lewica councillor on the Łódź city council and was vice-chair of Lewica in Łódź Voivodeship until November 2025. She said that a “gruby mur” separates her from the work of the Polska Press newsrooms, and Orlen stated that she does not oversee editorial content.

Orlen announced a competition for the post of president on 16 September 2026 through the eRecruiter service and the Polska Press careers page, with applications accepted until 21 September. The notice excludes candidates who are members of the governing bodies of political parties, employed in any form by a political party, full-time union officials or staff of parliamentary or senate offices, and Orlen reserved the right to close the procedure without selecting a candidate and without giving reasons. Orlen said the first stage drew more than a dozen applications, against 80 for the 2024 board competition, and gave no schedule; Żuraw did not apply.

Source of funding and budget

Polska Press finances its operations predominantly through commercial activity and receives no regular operating appropriation from the state budget. Its company-register record nevertheless lists public aid of PLN 95,100 in 2025 and PLN 35,100 in 2026, without stating the purpose or legal form of that assistance. Those amounts do not establish predominant public financing.

The figures below are the standalone accounts of Polska Press sp. z o.o. and exclude its 53 per cent subsidiary Pro Media. Sales revenue in 2025 was PLN 257.74 million, down 2 per cent from PLN 263.11 million in 2024. Advertising brought PLN 122.34 million, against PLN 126.27 million; sales of printed titles PLN 47.42 million, against PLN 54.17 million; printing services PLN 50.67 million, against PLN 54.12 million; plebiscites and similar projects PLN 22.53 million, against PLN 14.66 million; and other sales PLN 13.33 million, against PLN 11.57 million.

Orlen stated in August 2026 that the restructuring had improved the 2025 net result by about PLN 36 million year on year.

Orlen has held since 2024 that the publisher is to be divested. In a reply to the Minister of State Assets dated 29 August 2025, Orlen stated that Polska Press does not form part of its core business, is not planned as part of the group over the long term, and would be sold once the restructuring process ended. Chief executive Ireneusz Fąfara had called the purchase a “bad and unnecessary investment” in January 2025 and said the sale process would begin around June or July of that year. On 20 November 2025 he said that Orlen would go to market once restructuring was complete, which he hoped would be in 2026. Minister of State Assets Wojciech Balczun said on 14 January 2026 that the process was not at all advanced for the time being and that interest came from both domestic and foreign entities. On 10 August 2026 the Orlen press office stated the concern was maintaining its plans concerning Polska Press; ZPR Media Group and Wirtualna Polska had previously been named as interested parties, and Wojciech Kuśpik of PTWP Group said in June 2026 that he had no plans to buy the publisher.

Editorial independence

Three regional editors-in-chief were removed on a single day, 29 April 2021: Jerzy Sułowski of Gazeta Krakowska, Marek Twaróg of Dziennik Zachodni and Stanisław Sowa of Nowiny. Wojciech Mucha took over Gazeta Krakowska and Dziennik Polski, Grzegorz Gajda Dziennik Zachodni and Arkadiusz Rogowski Nowiny, while Wojciech Pokora took over Kurier Lubelski from May 2021. The dismissals followed the Warsaw court order of April 2021 staying the UOKiK approval, which Polska Press and Orlen said had no practical effect because the decision had already been implemented.

During the parliamentary election campaign of autumn 2023 the publisher refused paid election advertising from Lewica and Trzecia Droga in several of its titles, on the stated ground that the parties’ values were irreconcilable with its editorial line On 4 April 2025 the company notified the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw against former board members Stanisław Bortkiewicz, Dorota Kania, Miłosz Szulc and Łukasz Greszta and former authorised representative Anna Zapert, covering the period from June to November 2023. An Orlen audit stated that the takeover of the publisher may have had a political purpose and that the board had created a mechanism for blocking election advertisements to promote representatives of one side of the political scene.

Most editors-in-chief of the regional dailies left in February 2024, with three retaining their posts, at Nowa Trybuna Opolska, Echo Dnia and Polska Metropolia Warszawska. Open recruitment then covered 20 titles in two stages, 12 in the first and 8 in the second, and drew more than 210 applications. Maciej Sandecki took over Dziennik Bałtycki from 19 August 2024 and Marek Krzciuk Dziennik Łódzki and Express Ilustrowany from 16 September 2024. Marek Twaróg, removed from Dziennik Zachodni in 2021, returned as director for editorial development and group editor-in-chief from July 2024, coordinating all of the company’s editors-in-chief.

The company states that competitions for editor-in-chief posts were held publicly for the first time in 2024, with media able to follow each stage including candidate numbers and the grounds for decisions; that the group editor-in-chief no longer sits on the management board; that Polska Press adopted the Orlen group human rights policy with a channel for reporting abuses; that group companies are barred from political initiatives and from financing them; and that it ended cooperation with publicists who are active politicians.

Norges Bank Investment Management placed Orlen under observation in February 2023 over an unacceptable risk of contributing to human rights abuses, on grounds resting on the acquisition of Polska Press and its implications for press freedom in Poland. The Council on Ethics recommended ending the observation on 2 December 2024, citing the March 2024 change of board and management, the decision to divest the publisher, the separation of commercial management from editorial decision-making and the open recruitment of regional editors. Norges Bank discontinued the observation on 6 February 2025. The Council’s finding was that those changes could strengthen editorial freedom going forward; it did not certify that the publisher had achieved editorial independence.

The appointment of Elżbieta Żuraw as acting president in August 2026 renewed questions about the separation of media management and political activity. Żuraw is an elected councillor on the Łódź city council associated with Lewica, a party in the governing coalition, and Orlen stated that her responsibilities do not include direct supervision of the group’s newsrooms, which remain under separate editorial management. The arrangement demonstrates continued political exposure at the level of corporate governance.

The restructuring has also generated internal opposition. On 11 September 2026 employees circulated an anonymous letter headed “Objection to the circumvention of collective redundancies at Polska Press”, addressed to the company’s management, to Orlen, to the Prime Minister and to the ministers of state assets and labour, alleging that redundancies were being carried out so as to bypass the collective-dismissal procedure, union consultation and negotiated severance, and that newsrooms held roughly half the staff of three years earlier. The inter-union committee stated on 10 September that nearly 300 posts had been cut between the beginning of 2024 and February 2026, and that the suspension of the bonus system and of the annual pay-rise agreement had reduced incomes. Orlen said that no collective redundancies were being conducted at Polska Press, that employment had fallen by about 9 per cent across 2024 and 2025 with nearly half of the departures initiated by employees, and that a National Labour Inspectorate check had found no irregularity concerning collective-dismissal rules. The dispute concerns staffing, labour conditions and editorial capacity; it does not establish political direction of news content.

On 10 June 2026 the group launched Tematy Naczelne, a weekly selection of reportage, interviews, analysis and historical material chosen by the editors-in-chief and published simultaneously across the regional services. Twaróg described the project as an attempt to restore the weight of editorial recommendation and said the selected material merited attention regardless of whether it fitted the logic of clicks and reach.

AI and digital policy

In June 2025 the group implemented the Magnuso Push Planner, built by the Wrocław company Magnuso, which analyses articles, selects those it judges most relevant to subscribers, writes short notification texts and sends them as web push notifications in real time to subscribers of selected regional services and the i.pl portal. Dorota Mroczkowska, data-driven strategy manager, led the implementation and said that editors can actively correct and develop the generated content. Marek Twaróg said the tool relieves editors of routine distribution work.

The group has completed a rebuild of the home pages of all 22 regional services, supported by a new CMS 2.0 and an in-house platform called NSK for managing and distributing content across digital and print channels, a project that includes AI-based tools and is led by IT director Łukasz Zymer. Further phases cover the thematic products, the i.pl portal and the NaszeMiasto city services.

No publicly available Polska Press newsroom policy specifying when AI-generated or AI-assisted material must be reviewed, attributed or labelled was identified for this update.

Classification rationale

Polska Press remains classified Independent State-Managed/Owned (ISM).

The company is wholly owned by ORLEN S.A., a publicly listed energy group in which the Polish State Treasury holds 49.90 per cent of the shares and voting rights and remains the dominant shareholder. The publisher is therefore indirectly state-controlled through its parent company, rather than wholly owned by the state. ORLEN exercises the shareholder’s powers over Polska Press, including appointments to its governing bodies.

Polska Press finances its operations predominantly through commercial activity rather than regular state-budget appropriations. In 2025 the company’s standalone accounts recorded sales revenue of PLN 257.74 million and a net loss of PLN 42.35 million. The company register records limited public aid, but no predominant direct state financing has been established. The 2025 loss was covered from supplementary capital under a shareholder resolution.

The most substantial documented editorial interventions occurred under the management installed following ORLEN’s acquisition of the company. These included the removal of regional editors-in-chief in April 2021 and the refusal to publish opposition election advertisements during the 2023 parliamentary campaign. An ORLEN audit identified a mechanism intended to block advertising from opposition parties, leading the company to notify prosecutors in April 2025.

Following the change of government in Poland, ORLEN replaced the management of Polska Press in 2024. Editorial leadership was separated from commercial management, and editors-in-chief were recruited through public competitions. The Council on Ethics responsible for Norway’s sovereign wealth fund regarded these changes as capable of strengthening editorial independence and recommended ending its observation of ORLEN, which was discontinued in February 2025.

The subsequent period has nevertheless revealed continuing institutional vulnerabilities. In August 2026 Elżbieta Żuraw, an elected councillor associated with Lewica, became acting president of Polska Press, and ORLEN stated that she does not supervise editorial content directly. The company has also undergone substantial staffing reductions, criticised by employees and trade unions for weakening regional newsrooms, although those disputes do not themselves establish political interference in editorial decisions.

No documented instance of sustained editorial direction by state authorities since the 2024 management changes was identified for this review. The publisher remains exposed to state influence through its ownership and corporate appointments, but the evidence reviewed does not establish continuing state direction of editorial output.

The classification therefore remains Independent State-Managed/Owned, reflecting indirect state control over corporate governance, predominantly commercial financing and the absence of established sustained state-directed editorial control.

ORLEN has announced its intention to sell Polska Press once restructuring is complete. The next assessment will examine the completion of the Management Board recruitment, the effects of restructuring on regional newsrooms, any evidence of political influence over editorial decisions and developments concerning the proposed sale. A change of ownership would trigger reassessment under the State Media Matrix. A completed sale would remove the current basis for classification as state-managed through ORLEN, but it would not by itself establish that a future purchaser is independent of state authorities; depending on the buyer and the evidence of editorial control, the publisher could leave the active database or meet the criteria of another category.

October 2026