Bronisław Wildstein

Bronisław Wildstein (b. June 11, 1952 in Olsztyn, Poland) is a former Polish dissident, journalist, freelance author and, from May 11 2006 to February 28 2007, the CEO of Telewizja Polska, state-owned television. He rose to nationwide prominence in Poland in January and February 2005, after he had smuggled a file of informers and victims of the former communist secret police (Służba Bezpieczeństwa) out of the Institute for National Remembrance (IPN) and then distributed it among fellow journalists.[1] The file is commonly referred to as "Wildstein's List" (Polish: lista Wildsteina).

From 1971 through 1980, Wildstein studied Polish literature at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In the 1970s, he joined the oppositional Workers' Defence Committee (KOR), an influential highbrow forerunner to the Solidarity (est. 1980), and in 1977 co-founded the Committee of Student Solidarity (Studencki Komitet Solidarności). From 1980, he lived in France, where he worked as a journalist for the Polish monthly Kontakt and Radio Free Europe.

After the fall of communism he returned to Poland. From 1994 until 1996, he worked for the venerable Polish daily paper Życie Warszawy, before following Tomasz Wołek to the daily Życie, which had a more conservative political profile. Most recently, he was a salaried employee of the prestigious, moderately conservative to centrist daily Rzeczpospolita, which dropped him in the wake of the public controversy over "Wildstein's List".