Ahead of a hot political autumn, TPPI takes a brief summer break

A letter to our readers

Dear reader,

As the greek summer progresses to a glorious peak just before an expectedly hot – in terms of political turmoil – autumn, The Press Project International has been slowly winding down its coverage and its writers and editors are headed to the beach.

It’s not like we haven’t been busy until the eleventh hour. Here are some of the pieces we produced this month:

-Two special reports on topics that, despite their global interest, remain a taboo for most media in Greece:

• An in-depth look on Evangelos Marinakis, one of the top shipowners in the world, who is being investigated on very serious allegations  – but the Greek press, greek or english speaking, has abstained so far from reporting on it.
• A special report on George Provopoulos, Greece’s former central banker: The most powerful man in the country a couple of months ago, who is now a suspect in a banking investigation.

-An exclusive interview with Pablo Inglesias, leader of Podemos , the party that is reshaping politics in Spain.

-An editorial that has made waves on the web, promptly titled 'A country of riches lead by impoverished minds'

With the world engulfed in conflict, Greece has fallen out of the headlines of the international press. To us, this creates an even bigger journalistic and moral obligation to keep the non-Greek speaking public informed about what’s really happening in the country.

This has been our mission statement since day one of TPPI, some ten months ago, and we take pride in having aired stories that wouldn’t be there otherwise. With in-depth reports and op-eds by leading Greek columnists, we brought to the forefront topics such as the failed and largely misguided troika-induced reforms, the entangled web of interests among the political, corporate and media systems, the impending privatization of Greece’s most valuable assets – it coasts and cultural heritage -, corrupt dealing between top foreign companies and the Greek state, the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons and Golden Dawn’s back channeling with the government, to name a few.
 
So it is with little regret and much anticipation that we’re switching to vacation mode for the rest of August. And since we know that it couldn’t be farthest from the truth that August doesn’t produce news, we are going to be updating you on breaking news through our twitter feed. We have also compiled our most important stories so far in a single post, summing up the year so far.
We will be back in September. Probably*.

* By design, since day one, TPPI has been facing a constant financing crisis. As stated in our charter, in order to safeguard our independence, we do not accept advertising from the Greek state and the banks, who currently constitute the main source of income for the majority of the greek media.