[MGSA-L] Greece's Economic Crisis Reveals Fault Lines In The Media

[June Samaras]

Use the link to access the brrascast

http://www.npr.org/2013/02/18/172313291/greeces-economic-crisis-reveals-fault-lines-in-the-media

Greece's Economic Crisis Reveals Fault Lines In The Media

by SYLVIA POGGIOLI
February 18, 2013 2:58 PM

 In 2009, there were 39 national dailies, 23 national Sunday papers,
14 national weekly papers and dozens of TV and radio stations for a
population of 11 million.

Three years of spiraling economic crisis in Greece have devastated
every sector of the economy. The Greek media are among the hardest
hit. Many newspapers and TV outlets have closed or are on the verge,
and some 4,000 journalists have lost their jobs.

Many people believe the country's news media have failed to cover the
crisis — and lost credibility along the way. And many Greek
journalists acknowledge that a massive conflict of interest sooner or
later had to explode.

Nikos Xydakis, a columnist with the daily newspaper Kathimerini, says
the big media conglomerates never bother to analyze what's going on in
society.

"A big part of the media is controlled by construction moguls and
oligarchs," he says. "They reproduce the talk, talk, talk of
politicians. This is not journalism, it is everyday propaganda."

Cozy Relationships

Freelance journalist Nikolas Leontopoulos says Greek media owners are
too close to political and financial centers of power. "They didn't
care so much to earn money out of their media businesses — they cared
more about winning state contracts," he says.

This exchange of favors — news outlets that won't criticize the
government or the banks in return for public works contracts and loans
— contributed to one of the most inflated media sectors in Europe. In
2009, there were 39 national dailies, 23 national Sunday papers, 14
national weekly papers, and dozens of TV and radio stations for a
population of 11 million.

Some papers had a circulation of just 100 copies but survived thanks
to ads by state-owned businesses

Now the country's economic crisis has wiped out both public works and
advertising. Circulation is plummeting, media outlets are closing, and
many media owners are no longer able to pay back the loans from their
crony bankers.

Opinion polls show the media's credibility has plunged. And many
reporters who still have jobs have seen their salaries slashed up to
40 percent.

Leontopoulos says worse is to come: "Recently there was a prediction
that in the following year, in 2013, almost 50 percent of journalists
that used to work for the media will have lost their jobs."

A Push For Transparency

But the crisis in the media is also producing some new, independent
initiatives, especially online.

One such startup is the brainchild of a group of techies who used the
profits they made creating websites to form a site called The Press
Project to fill the Greek information vacuum. It started as an
aggregator of foreign media articles on the Greek and eurozone crises,
and has only grown.

"Eight months now, we have a full news portal for Greece, we have a
newsroom with breaking news, we have some investigative reporters,"
says director Kostas Efimeros.

The 11 staff members and 10 paid freelancers have taken advantage of a
new government website that Efimeros calls anything but transparent.
In fact, he says it was created and designed "with the only goal that
you can't find anything."

But Press Project's journalists have found plenty. They've decoded and
indexed every single official decision and details of every public
works contract and tenders — and in the process uncovered numerous
questionable transactions.

Efimeros and his colleagues are also working on a glossary of economic
crisis lingo that is incomprehensible for the average Greek, terms
such as "spread," "credit default swaps," "haircuts" and many more.

Press Project journalist Pandelis Panteloglu explains the site's
purpose this way: "We haven't actually seen serious public dialogue in
Greece for decades now. Well, it was about time."

Online media is increasingly popular, especially with young Greeks.
But even alternative outlets are threatened by the reality of the
crisis — more and more newly poor Greeks are being forced to give up
Internet access to pay for their minimum daily needs.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/feb/19/downturn-greece
------------------

Greek media in crisis - but online start-ups fill the vacuum

The media have been among the hardest hit sectors over the last three
years of the economic crisis in Greece, reports America's National
Public Radio (NPR).

Some 4,000 journalists are said to have lost their jobs due to the
closure of several newspapers and TV outlets. Others are on the verge
of closing.

And NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports that people believe the country's
news media have failed to cover the crisis properly, partly due to the
close connections between owners, politicians and financiers.

She quotes freelance journalist Nikolas Leontopoulos as saying that
Greek media owners cared more about winning state contracts for their
other businesses rather than earning money from their media outlets.

Poggioli writes: "This exchange of favours — news outlets that won't
criticise the government or the banks in return for public works
contracts and loans — contributed to one of the most inflated media
sectors in Europe."

In 2009, there were 39 national dailies, 23 national Sunday papers, 14
national weekly papers, and dozens of TV and radio stations for a
population of 11 million.

Though some titles had a circulation of just 100 copies they survived
due to ads by state-owned businesses. Now the crisis has wiped out
both public works and advertising.

The result: circulation is plummeting, media outlets are closing, and
many media owners are no longer able to pay back bank loans.

Opinion polls show the media's credibility has plunged. And many
reporters who still have jobs have seen their salaries slashed up to
40%.

But Poggioli points out that independent online start-ups are filling
the vacuum. She mentions a site called The Press Project, which has 11
staff members and 10 paid freelancers.

Its journalists have uncovered numerous questionable transactions
after analysing public works contracts and tenders. One of its staff,
Pandelis Panteloglu, said: "We haven't actually seen serious public
dialogue in Greece for decades now. Well, it was about time."

Source: NPR
-- 
June Samaras
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