Fakt was launched in October 2003 by the Polish outlet of the Germanpublishing companyAxel Springer AG, Axel Springer Polska, and modeled on Springer's German tabloidBild, the biggest-selling newspaper in Europe. Like its German counterpart Bild, Fakt is characterised by its downmarket, often sensationalist journalism with a populist appeal. However, politically it is by and large centrist. Then the paper supported former prime minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz's policies; Marcinkiewicz also regularly contributes invited comments. Other regular contributors of op-ed pieces include Tomasz Lis, a prominent television journalist with political ambitions, TVN anchorman Kamil Durczok, and former Rzeczpospolita columnist Maciej Rybiński. Untypically for a tabloid and in contrast to its usual content, Fakt has a weekly supplement entitledEuropa which contains highbrow essays by scholars and public intellectuals, which in 2006 have included Niall Ferguson, Francis Fukuyama, Jürgen Habermas, and Robert Kagan. The headquarters of Fakt is in Warsaw and the paper is published in tabloid format. The circulation of Fakt was 715,000 copies in 2003, making it the best selling newspaper in the country. Its circulation was 373,700 copies in Germany.
Response from competitors
Within a short time, Fakt replaced the upmarket to middle-market Gazeta Wyborcza as Poland's biggest-selling newspaper, also putting pressure on Super Express, until then the only national tabloid. Gazeta Wyborcza's publisher Agora S.A. responded with the launch of a distinct middle-market paper Nowy Dzień to compete directly with Fakt. When Fakt was launched at a price of 1 Polish złoty, Super Express 's publisher MediaExpress accused Springer of dumping its daily at a cover-price lower than its production costs. Having lost the lawsuit against Springer, MediaExpress reduced the price of Super Express to Fakt's level.
Criticism
Like Bild and other tabloid press products, Fakt has been subjected to criticism concerning its style of journalism from media watchdogs. Twice so far, the Association of Polish Journalists awarded Fakt with its "Hyena Of The Year" award for "particular unscrupulousness and neglect of the principles of the journalistic work ethic": In 2004, Fakt had published a photograph showing the nude dead body of a murder victim; in 2005 it had published the photo of an innocent person with the caption "This sex offender is at large".
