Established in 1957, Polityka is Poland's largest social and political news weekly and a reference for the nation's intelligentsia. Now under staff ownership, it is a journal with an obvious social-democrat bias. In a conservative society, it engages with controversial and taboo issues.
Since 1993, the magazine has awarded its prestigious "Passport Prizes" - the first step towards fame for many artists - in every cultural field from literature to ballet. In recent years, to the dismay of older readers, it has switched to a colour news magazine format, abandoning its traditional austere black-and-white front pages reminiscent of Die Zeit.