The newspaper in question is Rzeczpospolita. It is quite right wing - neoliberal in economics, neocon in foreign policy, center right on `moral' issues and the proud owner of an excellent, ideologically all over the map, weekly feuilleton supplement.  It  also has some of the best investigative journalism in Poland, deployed in a completely non partisan manner against corruption and crony capitalism of all political colours.  As you might imagine, everyone is certain that it is the last of Rzeczpospolita's characteristics that the government is interested in getting under control.

The paper was a dry as dust, langue de bois government mouthpiece under the old regime, then it was turned over to a bunch of journalists who'd been fired under martial law and/or who had gotten their experience in the underground press. It has since served as a dependable right wing counterpart to the center/social-liberal Gazeta Wyborcza, its rival in the quality newspaper market. The first post-communist government sold 51% of the ownership to a Norwegian media company and kept the rest. However, in spite of occasional threats, no subsequent government actually used its ownership stake to curb criticism. The previous government certainly must have been tempted - the editorial line was virulently hostile and the post communists provided a veritable gold mine for the investigative journalists.  But it's not just the post-communists that have been damaged by Rzeczpospolita's reporters. The post-Solidarity government that preceded them benefited from ideological sympathy but it didn't stop it from being the subject of numerous exposes, including one that brought down a powerful local political boss (the governor of Upper Silesia) and prompted Lech Kaczynski , Poland's new president, then minister of justice, to sic the `services' on Rzeczpospolita's reporters.  The current government has only been in office for a few months but Rzeczpospolita has already claimed one high level political scalp - the treasury minister turned out to have very close financial ties to a mob money launderer with a record of engaging in corporate fraud.  The treasury ministry is in charge of government owned enterprises and privatization, and thus has been a dependable font of corruption and patronage in the post-communist period.  For a government which had been elected on promises of cleaning up the ministry this was somewhat embarrassing. The editorial line shifted from guarded, nuanced support in the fall, to an increasingly critical stance in the winter. They also strongly supported the opposition's calls for a parliamentary investigative commission on Kaczynski's earlier spying efforts.

The first indication that the government might mean business came during the whole Mohammed cartoon controversy. Rzeczpospolita published them and the guy in charge of the government holding company that controls the government's share of the paper demanded that he be fired. At the time the Norwegians seemed to reject the advice. However, they're interested in selling their share of the paper (or buying out the government's share, but no government has agreed) and can't do so without governmental approval. So he's out.  A week or two ago the most prominent anti-government op-ed writer at the paper decided to change jobs as well.

His likely replacement is Pawel Lisicki, a former senior editor of the paper who resigned in protest at the firing of Bronislaw Wildstein, a top columnist at the paper.  Wildstein had smuggled out a confidential list of names from the secret police archives that listed informers and targets of the secret police, then put it online as a list of informers. The paper has always been strongly pro `lustration' but this was too sleazy for them, and he was out. Since then Lisicki was involved in preparations for the creation of a new, pro-government daily, and in his spare time wrote op-eds saying how the government is perfect and its critics hysterical intellectual elitists who are manufacturing fake scandals about the government.  Journalists at Rzeczpospolita are saying that he is likely to want them to focus their efforts on investigating the corruption of both the past government and the current main opposition party (ultra neo-liberal on economic policy, otherwise centrist) and back off on governmental sleaze. Of course all of them insist on remaining anonymous.

The other Polish serious daily is Gazeta Wyborcza, which is very, very hostile to the government, and the feeling is mutual.  The government has been making various threats against it as well. Until now I've dismissed them as the usual political huffing and puffing, now I'm not so sure.