Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,
My name is Waldemar Biniecki and I am the editor-in-chief of Kuryer Polski in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I come from Bydgoszcz. I am a regular publicist and columnist of the Solidarity Weekly (Tygodnik Solidarność). I am a member of the Association of Polish Journalists in Warsaw. A member of the World Association of Polish Media, publishing in the Polish press in the United States, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Australia and in recognized media in Poland: Tygodnik Solidarność, Wszystko co ważne, and others.
From the position of a Polish activist who does not avoid politics, I began the transformation into the position of a non-partisan promoter of Pax Polonica, bilingualism and pro-Polish lobbying in the United States. I am the winner of the Maciej Płażyński Award, the most important award honoring the work of journalists and media serving the Polish community. I received this award for promoting bilingualism and promoting a non-partisan view of reality.
Kuryer Polski
More than three years ago, the idea of reactivating the oldest daily newspaper in the United States called Kuryer Polski was born in Milwaukee. It is a continuation of the proud, over 70-year-old tradition of the first Polish newspaper in America with this name, published in Milwaukee from 1888 to 1962, and reactivated in 2020.
Today it is a bilingual internet portal aimed at connecting Poland and its diaspora around the world. To connect, and not divide, and this is a very difficult task in today's polarized world. Kuryer Polski is intellectually transforming into a magazine of emigration thought with articles of a very high standard, written by the emigre elite in the United States and other countries of residence of the Polish diaspora. The authors of Kuryer Polski are also outstanding representatives of Polish universities, media, and other institutions. Every year we climb to greater heights. However, this is arduous work without any significant financial support.
Kuryer's editorial team has established a long-term strategy, the vector of which is Kuryer's non-involvement in political struggles, but encouraging members of the Polish diaspora to be politically active on both sides, both conservative and liberal, in order to maintain and strengthen the importance and role of the Polish community in America and the world.
Inter-personal ties, including the ties between the Polish diaspora and Poland, have loosened significantly. There is a serious fear that the lack of such contacts will eliminate the Polish diaspora both from the life of their country of origin and from the life of their country of residence. There are 60 million of us Poles in total. The Polish community is made up of outstanding individuals: political or economic emigrants. These are talented, brave, hard-working and very patriotic people.
Our reach is constantly growing and we often receive very positive opinions about the particularly high standards of our articles, in which we do not look for cheap sensations or evoke unnecessary emotions, but we try to provide verified information and facts, supported by the sources we provide. We are becoming a positive role model for other media.
We write a lot about how important the role of the Polish diaspora is and what role it could play with somewhat closer cooperation with Poland and Polish diplomacy. We also recall the role it played in American politics as a serious political force in the past decades. We also write about the Polish community in other countries. We write about important activities of the Polish community in America and around the world. We present outstanding figures from the ranks of the Polish community. We present the most important politicians of Polish origin who had a huge impact on world politics. We also present the profiles of outstanding Poles.
Our articles are published on the Internet in both Polish and English, which means that some queries entered into well-known search engines - especially in English - bring up articles from Kuryer Polski with the highest rankings. This is our great success, because the lack of Polish narrative in the world of the English-speaking Internet is devastating. Writing about Polish issues in English is an extremely important and the Polish raison d'état needs it. English is now the global lingua franca - the common language of the entire world.
Kuryer Polski is an independent publishing house. We try to provide objective, reliable information. We do not promote any particular political or party line. We are not an agency medium that only provides news. We are a biweekly medium that is interested in analyses, opinions and historical articles.
The entire process of publishing Kuryer Polski is carried out on a voluntary basis. Nobody pays anyone for anything, there are no nice jobs paid for by taxpayers or sponsors. There is no dependence between the selection of content and the level of advertising expenditure. So we don't have to try to please anyone - we write what we really think.
Due to this, on the other hand, we are constantly looking for material resources, primarily to maintain the increasingly expensive Internet infrastructure. We do not have sufficient funds to expand our reach, and obtaining them is a major task for Kuryer. We write grant applications, but we clearly do not fit into the "preferred" group. Now, after the change of power in Poland, we are unlikely to be loved by the authorities either.
We American Poles - video blog channel on YouTube
The YouTube channel is exclusively in Polish, for now.
We plan to launch this channel in the New Year (2024). We have noticed that long texts cause problems for our readers. That's why I decided to launch this channel. For now, aside to Kuryer, but with the explosion of vloggers we cannot ignore this phenomenon. We know that our initial four films do not blow your mind. We know that we need to buy a prompter and design a professional background. And in the future, invest in more professional equipment.
Our strength is the simple fact that most Poles and the Polish diaspora know nothing about the history of emigration in individual countries. Few people are aware of the role of Emigration in creating Polish scientific, social, economic and cultural thought. Nobody knows about the achievements of Polish emigrants, their influence on regaining independence, or their inventions. Nobody knows how many millions of dollars come from Polish emigrants to Poland every year. Nobody in Poland is interested in our problems.
We are planning two thematic sections of this channel: columns from America - short discussions of current events in the United States in the form of film reels - and "What should you know about the Polish diaspora? — i.e. more sophisticated films on topics related to the Polish diaspora in the US and around the world. Both projects, Kuryer Polski and We American Poles, have their own narrative of building connections between the diaspora and Poland. We are not a propaganda mouthpiece for any party or any conspiracy theory. We are interested in the well-being and development of the Polish diaspora and its real cooperation with Poland.
What are we asking of you?
If you are a Polish emigrant yourself, please support us. Subscribe to our channel and support it. Send the link with the address of this channel to your friends. Place it on your Face book profile. Talk to your friends about this. Become an active participant in commenting on our materials. Make a donation on the Kuryer Polski website (kuryerpolski.us). This will help us.
Link to the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@weamericanpoles8036
** Translation from Polish by Andrew Woźniewicz.**
