The news selection practices in Greek media organisations appear to be crystallised and concrete. They involved at least one meeting between the editors-in-chief on a daily basis and a critical stance towards news originating in social media. However, these rules were largely informal and not consistent across all media organisations. Also, a quite troubling finding is that most journalists reported the absence of fact-checking departments in their organisations.
One journalist interviewed described the process of news selection and how much journalists are involved in that, as well as how they treated information obtained from social media:
The supervisor of each department is the first to select news that they consider important. This is followed by a meeting in the presence of the news director and the editors-in-chief of the organisation, who move forward with the final selection of the topics of each day. The journalist that covers each topic has a say in the selection of issues, as they have an immediate connection with the [thematic] object and, therefore, considered to have better knowledge. Any information that is distributed through social media is treated with caution. In such cases, it is considered necessary to confirm the information through official sources.
A columnist working for a quality newspaper confirmed that the process was similar throughout Greek media and outlets, albeit with differentiated levels of participation for their journalists:
In the newspaper there is a meeting at four o’clock where we evaluate what is available. There is an assessment of the ranking with regard to next day’s news. There is another meeting at 19:00–20:00 among the editors, with some things emerging as stronger and some milder. Certainly, it’s important how original the story is, the assessment that we have on how much the people will care about it and the assessment on how much the country could change from it. These three are the rules that exist.
However, the primary factor for news selection in Greece remained the political stance of the organisation. As one interviewee revealed: “Each organisation has a specific way of seeing things, that’s the political stance of the respective newspaper […]. It’s [the political stance] the most important criterion for news selection. In all the organisations, not just ours”.
Finally, most journalists reported that their organisations do not have a dedicated fact-checking department, with one exception on the part of the public service broadcaster ERT: “We avoid using social media as sources, only in urgent cases we might use online sources, but in these cases ERT has a fact-checking department that screens those”.
