Efforts To Salvage Journalism Fall To Independents

Michael Hedges February 27, 2023 - Follow on Twitter

Most every country has a fleet of independent media outlets. Typically, they are online and staffed by young reporters and editors. Where authoritarians rule, these independent - and critical - news organizations are regularly shutdown, prosecuted, disappeared.

The media sphere in Greece is, in some ways, not out of the ordinary. Rich people control major publishing and broadcast outlets, largely through the good graces of politicians. Dire economics over the last five years has sent all media outlets scrambling. Through that period, media owners have furiously shuffled their assets. In the midst of it all, independent mostly online outlets have swarmed the field.

Television station licensing consumed Greek media in 2016 as the attending government at the time stripped half the country’s TV owners of their licenses to print money. Being in Greece, it was all quite a drama, in several acts, lasting years. Minister of Digital Policy, Telecommunications and Media Nikos Pappas, in the left-leaning Syriza political party, piloted the effort to upend the established old boys network of television owners. The auction he authorized raised €246 million and infuriated ousted TV owners - who had operated with abandon for a generation - and the politicians they served.

Political dynamics changed in 2019 prime minister Alexis Tsipras (Syriza) called new elections and then lost to the center-right New Democracy party of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who became prime minister. Out also was Minister Pappas. Two years later the Greek Parliament, controlled by New Democracy, convened an investigation of Mr. Pappas role in the TV license auctions. Findings from that investigation were turned over to a special court to judge alleged misdeeds. Last Friday (February 24) that court found Mr. Pappas guilty, sentencing him to two years in prison, suspended.

Press freedom in Greece, as measured by Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF), tumbled to 108th in 2022 from 70th one year on. The Greek ranking is the lowest in the European Union. Media observers across the dial called press freedom in Greece “undoubtedly in free fall,” noted VoxEurop (February 24). The TV license controversy barely figured. There is the barely investigated unsolved 2021 “execution style” murder of crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz, followed by the SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation) targeting reporters and news outlets and the wiretapping of reporters. On top, laws were passed to criminalize reporting on migrants and coronavirus. Prime minister Mitsotakis called the RSF ranking “crap,” noted Euronews (February 20).

“There are lawsuits from large corporations,” noted veteran Greek investigative reporter Thodoris Chondrogiannos,” to IPI (April 21, 2021), “anonymous threats against them and their families, the warning of violence and damage to property in order to intimidate, the risk of dismissal by a publisher who wants to get rid of a troublesome reporter, character assassination operations by armies of trolls and anonymous accounts operating on social networks. All of these are ways to silence journalists, often leading them to self-censor themselves, before they can even be possibly censored by their editor.”

With Greek press freedom in certain distress and trust in media ebbing, not to forget serious economic strain, new online news outlets are sticking out their necks. Investigative reporting network Reporters United introduced itself in 2021. Its reporters lifted the veil on state surveillance of citizens - now referred to a Greek Watergate - established by the government in secret. Traditional news outlets turned a blind eye until the story was impossible to ignore.

"The alleged disengagement of the public with the surveillance issue was a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said investigative portal InsideStory reporter Eliza Triantafillou. InsideStory debuted in 2016. Another Greek non-profit investigative news portal, Solomon, found itself under state surveillance. Reporter Stavros Malichudis faced legal threats while pursuing migration issues. The Solomon team exited their Athens offices due to threats, option to work remotely. “Stavros' surveillance deeply affected the mental health of the whole team," said managing editor Iliana Papangeli.

See also...

• Hot Topics - Media in Greece

• Hot Topics - Journalism

• Hot Topics - Press/Media Freedom

• Hot Topics - Censorship