The biographies of the journalists of Polish press published in West Prussia in the 19th and early 20th century usually highlight their patriotic commitment and admirable perseverance in launching and running various newspapers and journals. However, we can also find in their lives episodes that did them little credit, or even were downright disgraceful.

Przedmiotem rozważań jest analiza artykułów w czasopismach ukazujących się na przełomie XIX i XX w., które przedstawiały postać Jakuba Jasińskiego. Badaniami objęto następujące tytuły prasowe: „Czarno na Białem” (1939), „Echo Pragi” (1917), „Gazeta Warszawska” (1924), „Gazeta Wileńska” (1906), „Kurier Literacko-Naukowy” (1927), „Kurjer Polski” (1917), „Kurier Poranny” (1886), „Kurier Warszawski” (1917), „Nowa Reforma” (1918), „Nowa Gazeta” (1917), „Sybilla Nadwiślańska” (1821), „Świat” (1917), „Tygodnik Ilustrowany” (1917). Zamierzeniem autorów było ukazanie osoby Jasińskiego na tle historii Polski. Nawiązywano do Mickiewicza, jako tego, który starał się wynieść Jasińskiego do grona polskich patriotów. Obraz ten był wielokrotnie powielany.

Judging by his private diaries, which he kept for 34 years, the press as such was hardly a major concern for Michał Römer (1880–1945), a Polish-Lithuanian aca-demic and politician who occasionally took on the role of editor and journalist. Nonetheless the diaries are an important contemporary source and a veritable mine of information about the multilingual press published in Wilno between 1911 and 1915. In the second part of that decade Römer ceased to be an active player in that scene, but he kept a watchful eye over it and continued to analyze and comment on the dramatic shifts in Poland's and Lithuania's multilingual press market, a process driven by the changing fortunes of war and its political consequences.

This article examines the jubilee book Nasz Plon [Our Harvest] prepared by editors of the Warsaw weekly magazine [Children’s Friend] (1861–1915) to mark the golden anniversary of its first issue. Set to appear in April 1911, its publication, plagued by various delays, did not take place until the following year. The volume, edited in a rather unprofessional manner (probably by Jadwiga Chrząszczewska), was full of errors ranging from misprints to all kinds of factual blunders. Yet, despite its faults it has a special place in the history of the Polish press: it was the first jubilee book of a children’s magazine and thus a notable sign of the rising social status of the children’s magazines.