Leading news media houses in Greece, for the most part, operate as subsidiaries of companies owned by a few powerful entrepreneurs coming from other sectors of the economy and exerting pressure on political actors in order to promote their business interests. This regime is as old as newspapers themselves of the post-dictatorship era and remained dominant even after the deregulation of the broadcasting sector and the strict surveillance that Greece recently went through based on a number of bail-outs. It is what Papathanassopoulos (2001: 519) has called a model of “interplay between media owners and political power centres and the battle for control of the public agenda” (see also Papathanassopoulos, 2017a).
Historically, the media system in Greece has been characterised by weak regulation and ineffective independent regulatory authorities, permitting a few powerful entrepreneurs – who were dominant in the newspapers sector – to expand their interests into the broadcasting and online media field. The rough-and-tumble deregulation of the broadcasting system that took place in Greece (1989) allowed the model of temporary television licences to thrive, a Greek paradox lasting 29 years (1989–2018). At the same time, a number of laws facilitated media ownership and cross-ownership.
Particularly in the broadcasting sector, the ineffective regulatory policies permitted the development of a problematic broadcasting model, characterised by clientelism and ministerial censorship in the shadow of a powerful state and a weak civic society (Papathanassopoulos, 2017a). In Greece, there seems traditionally to exist the “triangle of power”, comprising the political leadership, entrepreneurs, and media owners (Iosifidis & Boucas, 2015: 12–14). Over the years that followed the deregulation of the broadcasting field, the legal and regulatory framework favoured or turned a blind eye to the concentration of press, television, and radio outlets owned by powerful entrepreneurs (Leandros, 2010). This is the result of the Greek media policy’s evolution, characterised by a traditional government-oriented model of policy-making, permitting a strong state intervention into the media field with the goal of serving political or other aims (Psychogiopoulou et al., 2014). The financial crisis, framed by the austerity measures imposed on Greek society through three bailouts for a period of nine years (2010–2018), enhanced the strong relationship between the political elite and the media (Papathanassopoulos, 2017a).
In this bleak media context, alternative models of journalism, in terms of ownership regime, were investigated based on a co-partnership rationale (such as Efimerida ton Syntakton daily newspaper) or crowd funding methods of sustainability (such as the news website The Press Project). A newspaper editor-in-chief commented on the advantages of the co-partnership operational model:
Employees are the owners of the medium. Therefore, they are involved in this process [editorial-decision] every day. However, there is no intervention from top to down so as a news topic not to be included [in the media agenda] or an issue to be turned into a news topic.
The low degree of independence – experienced by leading news media in Greece in their attempt to maintain a state of affiliation with the political field – is reflected in the carefully controlled process by which decisions are made on the daily news agenda or news editing. As a news website journalist underlined:
The director prioritises the news items that must go hand in hand with the political line [that is, the political orientation] of the media organisation. Journalists always express political beliefs diligently […]. There is frequent contact with the director so as the news coverage does not contradict the political line of the media organisation […]. There are interventions in everything depending on the political orientation of the medium.
As far as the public service broadcaster ERT is concerned, a public service radio journalist underlined:
There is no organised structure for the operation of an organisation even at the heart of the journalistic management. The main news comes from those serving the government line. Attempts [on quality content] are being made at ERT. However, these are performed recklessly without any logic of protection from those serving the government’s line. The latter dominates entirely.
