Friday, November 03, 2006

PM Kaczynski keeps a low profile


Photojournalists have been instructed that they are not allowed to take pictures of the Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s profile.
Extraordinary piece of silliness, this one. I mean, we all have our complexes but this is getting ridiculous.

The strange announcement was made at a press conference yesterday where signs forbid snappers getting round to the side of the PM and taking pictures. No reason was given for the strange demand.

The government has long been touchy about the coverage it gets from the media here in Poland. They think it’s bias, and maybe it is. But though Jaroslaw’s ‘profile’ has not been good in the media, I can’t see how a ban on his profile will make that ‘profile’ any better.

The control freakery that the government’s critics have long accused it of has gone to new lengths with the attempt to control what photos are taken of its members.

The ban of profile shots of the PM has not, to my knowledge, been extended to profile shots of the President, which is odd, as identical twins usually have the same profile.

And of course, once you start making odd demands like this one of the media you are just asking for trouble. Profile shots of the PM are now all over the internet. The German blogs seem very impressed by it all, see here [sorry, it's Dutch] and here and here and here and here.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

See my variation of this polish theme...!

Anonymous said...

Really funny. By the way the first link
is not a german side. It is from the
Netherlands. They find it funny, too ;-)

Anonymous said...

Dear God! Why did I ever lapse in my visits to Beatroot?

beatroot said...

By the way the first link
is not a german side. It is from the Netherlands.


Really, really sorry about that one! My ignorance simply.

Welcome back AmericanPoloniaphile!

Bodenseepeter
That photo there is the most popular one going around at the moment. It was when he was in a press conference with Merkel. Not a very flattering one and probably the one that forced the new anti-profile policy!

MattyJ said...

What a sad little man. How can someone who still lives with their mother into their 50's be so vain? Get on with governing...

roman said...

Java man!

Frank Partisan said...

You're being contrarian again. He doesn't want to be profiled in profile, so what do you do? Show him in profile.

I'd probably do the same.

beatroot said...

As I said, Ren, when politicians start getting vain (and this isn;t a political issue, it's simple vantiy and a strange belief that they can control images of themselves) then they are asking for it.

Agnes said...

This is scary. And tells the story.