The Logical Front’s main playing field is the realm of private media. The picture you see above is a screenshot from one of their more prolific outlets — SKAI television network, and its late afternoon news talk-show, “SKAI at 6”, on Friday 12th January 2016. SKAI is strongly placed3 amongst the seven national networks currently operating in Greece and is owned by businessman Yannis Alafouzos, who also happens to own the probably most well-respected right wing daily newspaper in the country, Kathimerini, another of the Front’s darlings. Presenting “Skai at 6” is Konstantinos Bogdanos, a young journalist known for his personal, rather idiomatic style of presentation and his often provocative comments.
If you’ll kindly notice the giant red arrow, it should focus your attention from the footage of farmers demonstrating outside the Parliament to the headline that the station chose to broadcast at that particular time. Roughly translated, it reads: “Associated Press: SUSPENSION OF THE GREEKS’ FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT HAS BEGUN”. As soon as the headline appears, Bogdanos and a female journalist proceed to discuss an Associated Press report on Schengen members’ willingness to maintain border controls for two years, while repeating the aforementioned headline in lieu of a summation of AP’s report.
One could presumably be inclined to comb through AP’s report in search for a mention of the Greeks’ “freedom of movement” or its “suspension”. None of those words exists in the report. A search for ways that this bold claim can be surmised from the text, will undoubtedly yield similar results. How can such blatant misreporting be a reality, one would be wise to ask.
On the whole, misreporting and bias are hardly uncommon in greek journalism. But this is not the example of a party-owned newspaper, like SYRIZA’s “Avgi”, or that of a pioneer of yellow journalism, such as “Avriani”. This is SKAI. The network that, eerily mimicking Fox News’ “fair and balanced” slogan, once advertised its journalists for their fairness, their boldness, their accuracy4. Could this be just a one-off occurrence, a momentary lapse of concentration, for Skai and the rest of the privately owned networks?
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The Greek summer of 2015 was marked by the now infamous referendum on whether the country should accept the creditors’ terms for further aid, that Alexis Tsipras’s government announced on June 28th and organised on July 5th, a mere week later. Greece’s political discourse was marked by extreme polarisation, alarmist statements and firebrand rhetoric. Huge demonstrations where held by the two opposing sides of the argument on different days. The “No” supporters held a major demonstration on June 29th which, as demonstrations tend to do in Greece, culminated right around the time evening news comes on, around 20:00-21:00 in the evening. As did the “Yes” supporters’ demonstration, held on the next day, June 30th, with the slogan “We stay/live in Europe”.
This chart shows you how much time was afforded the two demonstrations on each of the major TV networks, the 5 larger private ones (SKAI, MEGA, ANT1, STAR & ALPHA) and the central public broadcaster (ERT1). You will notice that everywhere but the public broadcaster there is a distinct difference in coverage time. The “No” demonstration was under-covered in all private TV networks’ central news broadcasts, ranging from four and a half minutes less on STAR News, to twelve minutes less on ANT1 News and with SKAI offering the “No” supporters not even a few seconds of coverage. In total, you can notice that the “Yes” demonstration was covered more than 5 times as much as the “No” one.
During the whole week leading up to the vote, the “Yes” viewpoint was over-represented in the media and, according to the media themselves, that was only natural. Maria Sarafoglou, a secondary news anchor for Mega TV, went on-air with an irritated rant during a discussion with an actor supporting the “No” campaign, culminating in her declaring: “It’s not our fault that all social groups stand with ‘Yes’”. The actor was politely inquiring about the general lack of “No” campaigners invited as guests by the private TV channels.
The Logical Front, as could be expected, spearheaded the “Yes” campaign. Taking their cue from a number of E.U. officials, they proceeded to frame the referendum’s question as a “Yes or No to the Euro” dilemma. “Yes to the Euro” quickly transformed to “Yes to Europe”, and the rhetoric shifted from that of economic necessity, to that of cultural survival. What was at stake, suddenly, was Greece’s place in “the heart of Europe”, our European cultural heritage5.
A “No” result would rapidly transform Greece to a country much akin to North Korea6.KonstantinosBogdanos, Skai’s young presenter mentioned above, was interviewed by Swiss TV channel SRF and actually shed tears in fear of what could happen to his country after a possible “No” victory.
It is generally assumed that the private media’s behaviour during that week actually worked to the opposite effect than intended, and helped the “No” vote to a landslide victory.
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Analysing what the Logical Front is and how it works, is not an easy job. Since we are not talking about some kind of an organisation, but rather a general coordinated concurrence of a large number of individuals on subjects discussed and types of rhetoric used, the Front’s political views can be almost anything. While the whole “movement” is supposed to be about eschewing extremist views and a return to common-sense centrist ideology, it encompasses Thatcherites, neocons, traditional right-wing conservatives, corporate activists, politicians with ties to the greek military dictatorship, former Maoists, to name but a few of the different types.
A very similar image, applies to the Front’s opposite number, the SYRIZA-ANEL government. That too is comprised by a mix-up of seemingly differing ideologies, from euro-communists & socialist democrats to populist right-wingers, homophobes and conspiracy theorists. The difference is that the media discourse only labels one of those sides as “loony”. The side of the Logical Front is, well… logical.
But it is the supposedly logical side that has made declarations about the possibility of working together with a “more serious Golden Dawn”; that has called for articles of the constitution to be “temporarily rescinded”7; that constantly pinpoints “the cultural hegemony of the Left” as the reason for all of the country’s woes8; that went up in arms about a theatre production that dared to use excerpts from the book of a convicted terrorist, and managed to get it cancelled9. And it is the Front’s views that have been put on an unreachable pedestal by the media, overwhelmingly promoted and covered, ever under the auspices of “fairness” and “accuracy”.
There is no lack of crazy in greek politics. We have seen a cardiologist/MP testifying live on TV that sacred relics have healing powers10. This is our reality and it is now very difficult for something to genuinely surprise us. But it is a particularly irritating reality, when the “loons” claim that they, and only they, are the sane ones. Even more so, when they are the ones running the asylum.
1. http://ekloges.ypes.gr/current/v/public/#{“cls”:”main”,”params”:{}}
2. http://www.kathimerini.gr/848269/opinion/epikairothta/politikh/ena-metwpo-logikhs
http://www.protagon.gr/scripta/ideas/to-potami-ws-metwpo-logikis-34957000000
3. http://www.arianna.gr/gr/data/default.htm Nielsen Audience Measurement
4. Some time ago, Skai introduced an ad campaign about the quality of its journalists’ ethics and credibility. The campaign is now dead, with no trace of it left to survive online, in large part due to parodies by a news/satirical blog, called Jungle-Report. Although Skai has numerous times tried to ban the parody clips citing copyright infringement, only the parody versions of the ads can be found online today. http://jungle-report.blogspot.gr/2012/02/video.html
5. Stelios Ramfos, the “resident philosopher” of the Logical Front. https://steliosramfosgr.wordpress.com/2016/01/14/stelios-ramfos%CE%84es-latest-comment-from-guardian-relating-to-the-proximate-cause-of-the-greek-cultural-crisis/
7. Skai & Kathimerini journalist Tasos Telloglou, in an article on protagon.gr in 2010, which disappeared a few days after it’s publication. http://www.efsyn.gr/arthro/mia-hoynta-ma-poia-hoynta
«Η κυβέρνηση αυτή πρέπει να έχει έκτακτες εξουσίες, για νατοπω πιο απλά η χώρα είναι σε κατάσταση έκτακτης ανάγκης χωρίς δικτατορία αλλά ορισμένα άρθρα του συντάγματος πρέπει να βγουν “εκτός”(…)»
8. In this instance, MakisVoridis, a New Democracy MP, former speaker of the party, and former president of EPEN, a nationalist youth created at the behest of dictator Georgios Papadopoulos.
9. A play called “Nash’s equilibrium”, at the experimental stage of the National Theatre, used excerpts from convicted “17 November” terrorist Christodoulos Xiros’ testimony about his days spent under heavy guard and interrogation at hospital, along with excerpts taken from the work of Albert Camus.
10. SYRIZA MP, Ioannis Michelogiannakis, made the claim while debating against the cremation of dead, a practice that is still not possible in Greece. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPQ1tyfjyno