Anita Gargas

Anita Gargas Wojciechowska (born 11 January 1964) is a Polish journalist specialising in investigative journalism and a mathematician by education.

She is a journalist of the weekly Gazeta Polska and the daily Gazeta Polska Codziennie, where she is the head of the investigative section.

She was also published in the underground NZS periodical, Bez Retuszu, and at the end of the 1980s in another underground periodical, (Agency News Review).

After 1989, Gargas undertook postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Journalism and in 1991 began work as an intern and then as a full-time journalist in the political section of Tygodnik Solidarność.

During that time she took up investigative journalism, writing reports and investigative texts about members of the party nomenklatura of the Polish United Workers' Party.

In 1991, together with Maciej Wojciechowski, she published a book entitled Partie polityczne w Polsce (Political Parties in Poland).

In the same year, she left Tygodnik Solidarność and moved to the new daily Nowy Świat, created by Piotr Wierzbicki.

Due to the political conflict in May 1992, under Jan Olszewski's government, both were dismissed from their posts.

In 1993, Wierzbicki founded the monthly (transformed into a weekly) Gazeta Polska, which Gargas joined.

In June 1993, Gargas published the then secret

. This was a list of 64 members of the polish Sejm, the lower house of the Polish government who were secretly collaborating with the Ministry of Public Security and the Internal Military Service.

In 1998, Gargas became a member of the Polish Press Agency programme board.

In her work, she continued to develop as an investigative journalist, documenting scandals and crimes connected with the activities of state power, the former communist nomenklatura, and the former secret services.

She left Gazeta Polska in 2005.

At that time Piotr Wierzbicki ceased to be the editor-in-chief and was replaced by Tomasz Sakiewicz.

She started working for the.

At the same time, she became the editor of a programme called (Special mission), initiated explicitly by the Ozon stations directors, due to the lack of investigative journalism programmes at the station.

The order to prepare the new programme was given to Andrzej Godlewski, who invited Anita Gargas to run the programme.

The first episode appeared on air in January 2005 and was broadcast for several months, until the election campaign of 2005.

From 1 August 2006 to 19 February 2010, she was a deputy director of the news desk and the vice-director for journalism at TVP1, and the author of the programme Misja specjalna (Special Mission).

Gargas was born and raised in Katowice.

She graduated in mathematics from the University of Silesia in Katowice.

During her studies, she was a member of the Independent Students' Association and Fighting Solidarity.

In May 2006, Telewizja Polska (TVP) broadcast a film by Gargas entitled Prezydentowa bez barier (President without barriers) about Jolanta Kwaśniewska, the spouse of the President of the Republic of Poland Aleksander Kwaśniewski, the first lady of Poland in 1995–2005.

The content of the report referred to the ambiguities associated with the foundation run by Kwaśniewska, the charity foundation Porozumienie bez barier (Understanding Without Barriers).

As a result, Kwaśniewska filed a complaint with the Krajowa Rada Radiofonii i Telewizji (National Broadcasting Council).

The Council of Media Ethics criticised Gargas for passing over the truth and mixing information with commentary.

Despite this, the film was nominated for a media award named after Andrzej Woyciechowski.

The programme Misja specjalna was broadcast again in September 2006, after it was brought back on air by the president of TVP, Bronisław Wildstein.

Gargas became the main editor of the programme.

At the same time she was appointed deputy head of the journalism department, 2007 promoted to head, and in 2009 she was appointed deputy director of TVP1.

Her reports concerned scandals and pathologies in power and economy, such as connections of the Speaker of the Sejm Józef Oleksy and his family with fuel companies, and the lack of vetting in Poland.

In one of the programmes a recording of a conversation between historian Adam Michnik and businessman Aleksander Gudzowaty was played, describing how the editor of Gazeta Wyborcza Michnik, promised Gudzowaty, an oligarch, not to write about him in unflattering terms, essentially subverting his own journalists.

In 2007, Gargas began a trial with film producer Maciej Strzembosz, who suggested on an internet blog that she was working in a classified position in the WSI.

Gargas won the trial because the producer failed to provide evidence for his accusations.

The programme was broadcast until March 2009, when it was removed from the schedule.

Gargas was dismissed from the position of head of the Publicistic Department of TVP1 by the then acting president of TVP, Piotr Farfał.

In March 2009, a group of people wrote an open letter in her defence, considering her dismissal as a restriction of freedom of speech.

Gargas was the originator of the TV programme "The Big History Test".

Ater her dismissal, she accused public television of intellectual copyright theft in connection with the continuation of the programme by TVP.