Follow the money: The Petsas’ List

02/10/23 • 32 min

#108 The fall of press freedom in Greece

In the context of COVID-19 and its very special circumstances, the Greek government decided to give a huge amount of money, around 20 million euros, to friendly media to promote the messages of Civil Protection to deal with the pandemic. The media outlets that received the money were gathered in the so-called Petsas’ list, named after the respective minister’s last name. The press critical of the government received less than 1% of the total amount. To this day, there has been no official response answering the question of what criteria were used to award the money.

Show notes:

For this episode, our guests are Stefanos Loukopoulos, co-founder of Parliament Watch; Dimitris Kanellopoulos, a journalist and former director of the newspaper EfSyn; and Dimitris Galamatis, Secretary General for Communication and Information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Show notes:

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Inside the newsroom: stories of self-censorship

News manipulation and censorship have been done in many indirect ways, mainly economically. But sometimes, it is crude and overt in Greece: journalists cannot publish what they want, or they might lose their jobs. Even if they wanted to take the risk, the content never reaches the recipient because it is cut off by the editorial staff.

In episode 4, the interviews we hear from fellow journalists who have spoken publicly about stories of censorship in their everyday job and others who have agreed to speak anonymously about the pressures they face in the newsroom.

Show notes:

For this episode, our guests are Mahi Nicolora, a journalist working at the public broadcaster ERT, and three journalists who are dubbed by actors to preserve their anonymity.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

SLAPPed: journalists against strategic lawsuits

Very recently, Greece learned the meaning of the term SLAPP, short for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. It was not because Greeks read it in a book but because several journalists have been targeted by companies with lawsuits because of their investigative reporting and are thus called upon to face powerful giants in courtrooms. As explained during the last episode, this practice happens not with the aim of financial compensation for defamation but all for legal bullying and the gagging of the journalist.

There are three major SLAPP cases in Greece at the moment. The victims are featured in the latest episode of the podcast.

Show notes:

For this episode, our guests are the three journalists victims of SLAPP, Thodoris Chondrogiannos, Stavroula Poulimeni and Yannis Stevis; Babis Kouroundis, a lawyer and adjunct professor in Constitutional Law; Christina Ad. Vrettou, a Doctor of Constitutional Law; Peter Chantilas, a lawyer representing the Greek hospital administrator; and Kostas Papadakis, Stevis’ lawyer.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.