Eleftherotypia

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Not to be confused with center-right newspaper Eleftheros Typos.
Eleftherotypia
Media of Greece
  • List of newspapers

    • Eleftherotypia (Greek: Ελευθεροτυπία, lit. 'freedom of the press') was a daily national newspaper published in Athens, Greece.

    Published since 21 July 1975, it was the first newspaper to appear after the fall of the

    Regime of the Colonels, and for most of its period had been one of the two most widely circulated newspapers in the country.[1]
    Generally taking a center-left, socialist stance, it was highly respected for its independence and impartiality.

    Following the economic downturn in Greece, the newspaper had to file for bankruptcy in 2011. Briefly taken over by a new publisher, lawyer Harris Oikonomopoulos, it was finally shut down in November 2014.

    Profile

    From the beginning, Eleftherotypia had been an opposition voice against the governments of the conservative

    PASOK party came into government, it adopted a more pro-government stance, but remained critical and at times harsh.[2]

    History

    Foundation

    Founded as a cooperative owned by its journalists, it was nicknamed "the newspaper with 80 editors-in-chief". It was however soon taken over by the Tegopoulos brothers,[2] and was published by businessman Christos ("Kitsos") Tegopoulos, retaining its traditional socialist domestic and international stance.

    In the era of Serafim Fintanidis [el], who had been editor-in-chief from 1976 until 2006, Eleftherotypia sold up to 160,448 copies[2] and had more than 800 employees.[3]

    Bankruptcy

    Amidst the

    Greek financial crisis, Eleftherotypia was hit hard by dwindling revenues. Because of financial problems, Tegopoulos Publishing was unable to pay its employees from August 2011. A loan settlement with Alpha Bank was reached, causing the staff to be sharply cut and the headquarters to be sold. In October, Alpha Bank however withdrew the settlement, requiring the publisher to file for bankruptcy.[2] The remaining 135 journalists however kept running what remained to be the second-largest newspaper of the country.[4]

    Relaunch and final closure

    On 10 January 2013, Eleftherotypia and its internet site Enet were relaunched after new publisher Harris Oikonomopoulos had acquired 67% of Eleftherotypia's shares from the Tegopoulos family.[5] Under the new publisher, the newspaper, however did not recover. For nine months, the editors continued publishing the daily newspaper without being paid any wages. They proposed turning the newspaper back into a cooperative, but Oikonomopoulos turned them down. In November 2014, the newspaper's operations were finally halted and the editors were locked out from the newspaper's website and social media accounts.[6]

    BBC News described the closure of Eleftherotypia, which it called "a rare voice of independence and impartiality", as the perhaps most shocking closure of the Greek media landscape.[3]

    Former journalists of Eleftherotypia decided to publish a new cooperative newspaper with the name "Efimerida ton Syntakton".[7]

    Editions

    Weekend editions

    The newspaper's Sunday edition Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia (

    Le Monde Diplomatique. Since 2009, it contained The New York Times International Weekly supplement, featuring a selection of articles from The New York Times
    translated into Greek.

    The Saturday and Sunday editions of Eleftherotypia, usually featured articles by a group of journalists, who collectively use the name the "Ios" (Greek "Ιος" meaning "virus"). The Ios were known for targeting and heavily criticizing the Greek far right, the church, the army, the police and United States foreign policy.

    The "9" comics magazine

    Every Wednesday, the newspaper features the "9" ("ennea")

    Helias Kyriazes, Tasos Papaioannou, Argyris Mavreas, Katerina Vamvasaki and Vasilis Lolos.[8]

    Each issue usually features an ongoing "central story" which usually takes up four or five consecutive issues, a science-fiction short story and various comics, strips and caricatures. Since the beginning of the magazine's publication, in June 2000, no issue has been published without a woman on its front page.

    Daily political cartoons were provided by Kostas Koufogiorgos and Vaggeli Papavasiliou.

    Controversy

    In April 1977,

    militant anarchist groups
    , also send their communiques exclusively to Eleftherotypia, under the assumption that the newspaper, while unlikely to be directly supportive, would be more likely to publicise their views.

    The newspaper became known for its policy of publishing the proclamations of such groups without criticism. Until 2002 it abstained from condemning terrorist attacks, including assassinations. In the past, some Eleftherotypia editors have also criticised

    counter terrorism laws, with some perceiving this as evidence that the publication was supportive of terrorism.[9]

    In November 2005, the

    Court of Appeals
    in Athens found the publisher Tegopoulos Publishing, as well as editor-in-chief Serafim Fintanidis and another 2 persons guilty of slandering the Public Prosecutor of the trial of the 17N terrorist group, District Attorney Christos Lambrou. They were fined Euro 60,000 each to be paid to Mr. Lambrou.

    See also

    Notes

    1. ^ Smith, Helena (12 June 2012). "Greek journalists return to work unpaid for what may be paper's last edition". The Guardian.
    2. ^ a b c d "Eleftherotypia Newspaper to be Included in Article 99 of Hellenic Bankruptcy Code". Greek Reporter. 30 December 2011. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
    3. ^ a b Lowen, Mark (23 August 2012). "Greece's media buckles under strain of financial crisis". BBC News. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
    4. ^ "Greek media struggles to survive financial crisis". 16 March 2012. Archived from the original on 3 April 2015. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
    5. ^ "Editorial: Eleftherotypia publisher defiant". EnetEnglish. 10 June 2013. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
    6. ^ "Lock-out for 140 unpaid journos & staff of daily "Eleftherotypia" after strike". 24 November 2014. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
    7. ^ We had no investors. We did it alone, believing in our power and abilities theguardian.com
    8. ^ a b Letter by Angelos Mastorakis, editor of 9 Archived 2006-04-27 at the Wayback Machine
    9. ISBN 960-252-007-8
      A research on the reactions of Greek media and the public after the 9/11 attacks.

    External links
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