Greek journalists return to work unpaid for what may be paper’s last edition
Eleftherotypia was Greece's second-biggest newspaper, a centre-left daily with a proud tradition of independent reporting and opinion. Founded after the fall of the military dictatorship in 1974, its name means "freedom of the press".
With the exception of a couple of special editions brought out by its staff, it has not been published since last December. Its 800 employees – writers, editors, production staff, print and support workers – have not been paid their salaries since last August.
There have been individual court cases, most of which the employees have won, and Eleftherotypia's owners were recently denied court protection from creditors. But there's still no money.
This week, more than 120 journalists and production staff have gathered again in the paper's offices, preparing a third and, very possibly, final special edition, to be published on the day before the general election re-run that could be so crucial for Greece's future. It will run to a full 80 pages of news and comment, like the old days, and from the support they are getting, on Twitter and elsewhere, they are confident they will sell at the very least 50,000 copies, at EUR 1.30 a pop.
"We're making one last effort," says Christos Zervas, a senior roving reporter. "We want to send a message to the public, the market and our owners that we are still here, that we can still make a very good newspaper, that plenty of people will still buy it, and that something should now be done." (The Guardian)
No comments:
Post a Comment