Grand Press 2025 honours Poland’s top journalists

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The news in Polish

1. odbyć się
   mieć miejsce, dziać się w określonym czasie i miejscu ↩︎
2. gala  (f.)
   uroczyste, eleganckie wydarzenie, często z rozdaniem nagród ↩︎
3. reporter  (m.)
   dziennikarz, który zbiera informacje i relacjonuje wydarzenia, często z miejsca ich trwania ↩︎
4. ciąża  (f.)
   stan, kiedy kobieta nosi dziecko w brzuchu przed jego urodzeniem ↩︎
5. aborcja  (f.)
   zabieg medyczny, w wyniku którego przerywa się ciążę ↩︎
6. fałszywy
   nieprawdziwy, niezgodny z faktami, udający coś innego ↩︎

Translation

Text comprehension

Question 1: Where did the Grand Press 2025 gala take place?

Question 2: What kind of journalist is Michał Przedlacki, who received the Journalist of the Year title?

Vocabulary

Polish	English
odbyć się	to take place
gala  (f.)	gala
reporter  (m.)	reporter
ciąża  (f.)	pregnancy
aborcja  (f.)	abortion
fałszywy	false

Read the full story

The Grand Press 2025 awards, considered one of the most important distinctions for journalists in Poland, were presented on Sunday at the Polish Theatre in Warsaw. The gala marked the 29th edition of the competition, which has been organised since 1997 by the media magazine “Press”. The awards highlight high-quality journalism in many categories, from breaking news to long-form reporting and local journalism.

The title of Journalist of the Year 2025 went to Michał Przedlacki, a reporter for TVN24’s investigative programme “Superwizjer”. He was recognised mainly for his war reporting from Ukraine. The jury underlined the importance of his coverage from the front line, which brought Polish viewers closer to the reality of the Russian–Ukrainian war and its impact on civilians and soldiers.

One of the most discussed awards this year was the News category. The prize was given to Mariusz Gierszewski from Radio ZET and Dominika Długosz from “Newsweek Polska”. Their story revealed a late-night meeting between then Speaker of the Sejm Szymon Hołownia and a representative of the ruling party Law and Justice (PiS), at the home of PiS MEP Adam Bielan. The meeting took place a few days after official results of the presidential election were announced, confirming the victory of Karol Nawrocki in the second round.

The journalists’ report described how Hołownia arrived late in the evening for a private dinner with Bielan and senior PiS figures, including party leader Jarosław Kaczyński and politician Michał Kamiński. Their publication, released on 4 July, triggered intense political debate and a crisis inside the ruling coalition, because Hołownia’s party was part of the government that competes with PiS.

The revelation also sparked a separate controversy over how information about the meeting reached the media. Adam Bielan publicly accused members of the State Protection Service (SOP), the body responsible for protecting top officials, of leaking details. According to Bielan, only SOP officers who guarded Hołownia could have known about the dinner, and he suggested that the leak was politically motivated and connected to Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Bielan stated that journalists allegedly learned about the meeting from politicians supervising SOP. These accusations have been widely reported, but have not been independently confirmed.

For his part, Szymon Hołownia has repeatedly insisted in television interviews that the talks with Kaczyński, Bielan and Kamiński did not concern forming a new coalition, nor any offer for him to become prime minister or remain Speaker after November 2023. He admitted that the July dinner was not the first meeting in this group; a previous one had been cut short, and the politicians decided to continue their conversation later. Hołownia argued that such meetings were part of normal political dialogue, while critics questioned the secrecy and timing. The Grand Press jury, however, focused on the public importance of exposing an event that had been intended to remain hidden.

During the gala, Dominika Długosz reflected on journalism as a profession, speaking about the tension between the high ambitions of reporters and the sometimes limited visible effects of their work. She emphasised that revealing information that powerful people prefer to keep secret is what makes journalism, in her view, “the best job in the world”.

Another major winner was Ewa Raczyńska from the news portal Onet, who received the award for press/online reportage. Her text, titled “‘I hoped until the end that I would give birth to Felek.’ Anita’s story in the fire of accusations and comments”, tells the story of a woman whose doctors misinformed her about the condition of her pregnancy and placed her in a psychiatric hospital. After she decided to have an abortion in the 37th week, she became the target of massive online hate. The report was praised for its detailed reconstruction of events and sensitive portrayal of a highly polarising issue in Poland’s public debate.

In the same category, another Onet journalist, Monika Waluś, was nominated for her article on a mysterious death in Miami involving fentanyl and a Polish promoter, showing that Polish investigative work increasingly reaches beyond national borders.

The Investigative Journalism category was won by Rafał Stangreciak and Grzegorz Łakomski from TVN24’s programme “Czarno na białym” (“Black on White”). Their three-part series “Dear MPs” — including reports titled “Vacuum Cleaners”, “Ghost Offices” and “What Harm in Settling Accounts” — examined financial reports from parliamentary offices of Polish MPs. They analysed how public money was spent, highlighting questionable expenses and offices that seemed to exist mostly on paper. Even the authors described the award as a surprise, saying that the behaviour of the politicians themselves shaped much of the story.

In the category Television/Video Reportage, the winner was TVN24 reporter Marcin Gutowski for his series “The Secret of the Correspondence”. In three films — “A Purchase for Millions”, “The Road to the Vatican” and “The Scandal in Boston” — he explored a collection of several hundred letters between Polish philosopher Anna Teresa Tymieniecka and Karol Wojtyła, the future Pope John Paul II. The material shed light on a long-lasting intellectual and personal relationship and on how the letters, valued at millions, had been locked away for years.

The prize for Interview went to Piotr Jacoń of TVN24 for a long conversation with actor Maciej Stuhr, broadcast in the series “Bez polityki” (“Without Politics”) on TVN24+. The interview focused on grief and saying goodbye to a loved one, especially when the final stage of life is not immediately recognised. Jacoń explained that he wanted to address the emotional and social difficulties around death and dying, topics often avoided in public discussion.

Other categories also highlighted a broad range of Polish media. The prize for Specialist Journalism and New Forms went to a team from the architecture magazine “Architektura-murator” — Dorota Niećko, Agata Gumółka, Karol Gruszka and Szymon Starnawski — for their feature “Fest srogi familok”, a story about a huge housing block that functions almost like its own town. Michał Janczura from Wirtualna Polska won the Audio Reportage category for his podcast series “Szarlatan” (“Quack”), and Piotr Guzik from the regional portal OPOlska360 received the prize for local and regional journalism.

In the Commentary/Publicism category, the award went to Rafał Kalukin from the weekly “Polityka” for his article “Gry w przegraną” (“Games in Losing”). The title of Reportage Book of the Year 2025 was shared by two works: “Pinezka. Notes from the Polish–Belarusian border” by professor Urszula Glensk, and “Heweliusz. The mystery of the Baltic disaster” by Adam Zadworny. The Bohdan Tomaszewski Prize, awarded for sports journalism, went to Janusz Pindera.

A special distinction, the Grand Press Veritas award for outstanding fact-checking and work against disinformation, was given to the editorial teams of “Sprawdzamy” and “Wykrywacz kłamstw” at public broadcaster TVP Info. Also nominated in this category were the fact-checking desk of the news portal Konkret24 and a team from the Polish Press Agency, reflecting a growing focus on combating misinformation in Poland.

The jury for this year’s Grand Press included editors and media managers from different organisations and political backgrounds: among them Andrzej Andrysiak (“Gazeta Radomszczańska”), Mariusz Janicki (“Polityka”), Magda Jethon (Radio Nowy Świat), Barbara Kasprzycka (Wirtualna Polska), television executive Edward Miszczak (Polsat), and representatives of TVN24, the Polish Press Agency, regional media groups and foreign agency AFP. One of the jurors, Jacek Żakowski, was the first ever holder of the Journalist of the Year title. The panel stated that it based its choices on the quality of the reporting craft, the significance of the material for the public, originality, and adherence to ethical standards.

For readers outside Poland, the Grand Press awards offer a snapshot of the country’s media landscape. The 2025 edition highlighted both international topics, such as the war in Ukraine and historical issues related to John Paul II, and deeply domestic debates, from parliamentary spending to reproductive rights and secret political talks. Together, the winning pieces present a picture of Polish journalism that is active in scrutinising power, exploring sensitive social questions and experimenting with new forms of storytelling.

Info: ‘Polish Learner News’ is a service from ‘Let’s Learn Polish’, a language school dedicated to teaching Polish through online courses. As part of our range of online Polish classes, this service shares updates, explanations and learning tips for students at different levels.