State surveillance and court cases: The lonely fight for press freedom of Greece’s independent media
by Alessio Giussani
Part 4 - Self-censorship
Troubles for press freedom in Greece started well before the conservative government came to power in 2019.
In a country with a tradition of political and business meddling in editorial decisions, the economic crisis made the press all the more reliant on political parties, tycoons and advertisers. This, in turn, further eroded journalistic independence and undermined public trust.
In Reuters Institute’s 2022 Digital News Report, Greece ranked lowest across 46 countries in terms of the share of citizens thinking that the press is free from undue political or business influence.
"From shipping to energy and the banking sector, self-censorship in the mainstream media has become systematic since 2010," Yannis-Orestis Papadimitriou, a journalist at investigative outfit The Manifold, told Euronews.
In a country with a tradition of political and business meddling in editorial decisions, the economic crisis made the press all the more reliant on political parties, tycoons and advertisers. This, in turn, further eroded journalistic independence and undermined public trust.
In Reuters Institute’s 2022 Digital News Report, Greece ranked lowest across 46 countries in terms of the share of citizens thinking that the press is free from undue political or business influence.
"From shipping to energy and the banking sector, self-censorship in the mainstream media has become systematic since 2010," Yannis-Orestis Papadimitriou, a journalist at investigative outfit The Manifold, told Euronews.
With members in Athens, Nicosia and London, The Manifold has published extensively on police violence and child abuse in Greece, facing reticence and ostracism. "We are often completely cut off from getting answers, both from company and government sources," Papadimitriou explained.
The legacy media – and TV in particular – may have lost credit in the eyes of a large section of the public, but it still sets the debate.
For months, InsideStory and Reporters United kept the spotlight on the surveillance scandal, until the story became too big for the big media to ignore. According to Eliza Triantafillou, a journalist at InsideStory, "the alleged disengagement of the public with the surveillance issue was a self-fulfilling prophecy".
The legacy media – and TV in particular – may have lost credit in the eyes of a large section of the public, but it still sets the debate.
For months, InsideStory and Reporters United kept the spotlight on the surveillance scandal, until the story became too big for the big media to ignore. According to Eliza Triantafillou, a journalist at InsideStory, "the alleged disengagement of the public with the surveillance issue was a self-fulfilling prophecy".
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