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1. The practice
2. Comments and hints for an evaluation
2.1 Strenghts
The newspaper takes an alternative approach to the "Eastern European immigrant in the UK" by including articles such as “Who Would Leave a Place Like This?” and “Why I Will Never Leave Poland.” This may help to dispel myths or preconceptions which exist amongst many Britons when thinking about what life is like in countries with high levels of emigration. It might also start people thinking about more complex questions regarding migration rather than only seeing economics as a driving force.
By keeping the standard features of the paper (quiz, food section, etc.) regular readers do not feel in anyway that they are having a "pro-Polish migrant" attitude forced upon them. Indeed the primary aim of the publication is to entertain, rather than to force a particular opinion about Poles in Britain. The views expressed are varied, touching on both the positive and negative aspects of the issue.
The easy style, with serious topics reported in a light-hearted fashion allows the reader to explore the many different facets of life in an easy and illuminating way. There are stories of love, opinion pieces, reportages, interviews, and cultural insights.
They use both Polish and British writers so the publication gives both perspectives: what Britons see when they look at Poles, and what Poles see when they look at Britain. In this sense the piece is as interesting for native Brits. It is often hard to self-evaluate when one is immersed in the culture from birth; immigrants can provide the insight into the way British people live and their attitude towards foreigners. The Polish writers are particularly frank, both in their evaluation of Poland “I have never seen such keen satire and universal national derision for the ruling elite as exists in Poland today,” (Dorota Maslowska) and of Britain, “I inspected the wrapping of the sausages, which proudly informed the consumer that they included a "minimum of 50% meat". I was probably the only man in the whole county of Surrey who asked himself the difficult question: "in God’s name, if that was the case, what was in the other half?” (Robert Maklowicz)
Within the confines of a liberal leaning features section, Poles have the space to express their frank opinion of British society. This publication might even be seen as an outlet where the Poles can be honest with the British public. Although discussion of a similar kind does take place on the letters pages of Polish language publications in the UK, the paper proved a platform for Poles to air their feelings to members of the British public.
2.2 Critical Points
“The mistakes the paper made in Polish, the language I mean, are awful”, complained one labour migrant. In a publication supposedly displaying the rich culture of Poland it seems a rather large oversight to misspell some of the Polish contributor’s names. Furthermore, if they wanted to attract Polish readers it is not a good way to convince them of the quality of the writing within the paper. It was not the central pages (that were completely in Polish) which had mistakes, but rather the English articles which had Polish names, places or phrases.
Readers letters in the following editions of the paper also addressed some problems, namely the lack of coverage of some aspects of Polish immigration,
“Your very interesting G2 special Polish edition (July 21) misses out a big group of Poles. We are the invisible ones, born in this country of Polish immigrants in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, during the communist regime in Poland, when even telephoning, let alone travelling there, was difficult. We grew up hearing about the mother country, but without grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. The English treat us as Poles, but when we visit Poland, we are treated as English.
Our names point us out as being different - to the point of suffering violence in a minority of cases - yet our accents speak solidly of English. We can speak Polish to make ourselves understood, but neither the immigrants nor Poles back home treat us the same. Yet often we feel more Polish then they are, absorbing every single detail of the nation's history and culture in a vain attempt to make ourselves belong.
Personally speaking, the influx of new Poles puts us in another difficult position. How do we relate to them when they feel we are lucky to have been born in a country with good economic prospects and we feel they are the lucky ones born there? Our cultural heritage is complex. I am proud to be of Polish origin, Lancastrian and British (but curiously not English).”
However this can be taken as a compliment because the reader, as stated in the beginning, did enjoy the special. If coverage of other aspects of Polish life in Britain had not been such an enjoyable read then there is less chance they would feel moved to complain that some area concerning Poles in Britain has been missed out.
2.3 Conclusion: what is “exportable” in the project
The publication was bi-lingual and so it has different audiences for different sections of the paper. It was not bi-lingual in the sense that the same information was presented into two different languages but the features were different with a translation offered on the website with a "what can’t speak Polish yet? Check out website for the translation" as explanation. Often, possibly because of the British mentality different languages are rarely seen together. It is often considered that it will "scare-off" readers, as many people on the island do not speak other languages. It might be argued that this publication shows that having a foreign language will not scare of readers. However this was within the context of a one of special and with words that a very similar to English, so it is probably unwise to read too much into the event.
Conclusions about the British public’s attitude to migration might also be made. Much of the press, especially the tabloid press, often take an anti-immigrant line, this publication’s sensible and mature approach to the question may suggest that the British public might be able to discuss the complex issue without the scaremongering done by groups such as Migration Watch (www.migrationwatchuk.org). However, as stated above Guardian readers are typically left-leaning liberals and so it would be wrong to extrapolate opinions to society as a whole.
What is also posssibly exportable is that the paper managed to produce an interesting and informative publication without resorting to the usual polemics which can often plague reporting on immigrants. It wasn't gushingly supportive, nor focussing on isolated negative events but attempted a balanced journalistic approach.
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