Nie wchodzi się dwa razy do tej samej rzeki. Obraz katastrofy ekologicznej na Odrze a wiarygodność polskich władz w przekazie wybranych mediów niemieckich

In August 2022 the Polish media reported on a mass mortality of fish and other animals in the Oder, which occurred as a result of contamination of the river’s waters over a section of several hundred kilometres. The situation revealed that Poland lacked an effective water control system and procedures in the case of contamination. Polish authorities’ response and crisis communication, including with foreign partners in the Oder region, were widely commented on in foreign media. From the perspective of Polish-German relations – which have been strained in recent years – how such a crisis is communicated by the media in Poland’s western neighbour seems to be of particular interest. The article presents the results of the content analysis of selected German media in August 2022. The quantitative analysis covered the service of selected German opinion-forming media. The qualitative analysis covered printed editions of selected opinion-forming weeklies (F.A.S., WamS, BamS, Der Spiegel, Stern, Focus, Die Zeit) and weekend editions of two titles published in the border federal states (ger. Bundesländer) (Neues Deutschland/Die Woche, Sächsische Zeitung). The research aimed to evaluate how the actions of the Polish government were presented in the German media during the crisis caused by the ecological disaster.