Polish joumalists: professionalism and politics is a study of how, in the face of constant political instructions and restrictions, Polish journalists have come to act as independent forces in their society, acting like professionals do in Western societies. Based on a survey of Polish journalists and interviews carried out with working journalists and editors before and after the Solidarity era, as well as published and unpublished studies, documents, and discussions, the book examines how individuals who go into journalism come to think of themselves as journalists, create a strong community of fellow professionals, and work publicly and privately to protect their own interests and serve their own goal of being the ‘watchdogs and advocates for a better society’. In doing this, the book answers the long untouched questions of how groups come to be independent critical forces in communist societies lobbying for their own interests and influencing broader public policy when the ideology denies their existence. Through journalists’ work we see, too, how policies are created and remolded behind the scenes.