TV & Video - Nov. 20, 1989

Polish News, Solidarity-Style One of the last ramparts of Communist control fell Saturday with the first Polish broadcast of a prime-time news program controlled by the Solidarity-led government. The lead story of the Warsaw-based evening news was a report on President Wojciech Jaruzelski’s meeting with relatives of officers killed at Katyn in the Soviet Union during World War II (two years ago, any discussion of the deaths of the 4,300 officers was taboo). Reports were also presented on the financial situation of the Gdansk shipyard, the birthplace of Solidarity; and on Solidarity union leader Lech Walesa’s trip through the United States. The Communist Party had dominated the mass media ever since World War II, and the evening news had been one of its main instruments of propaganda.