ΤPP was born out of necessity. While a discussion began in the rest of the world about the euro zone and its viability, in Greece, established local media adhered to choices promoted by the government and the country’s international lenders as the only way out of the crisis. TPP rose to the occasion by challenging the artheroslerotic narrative, by trying to provide news free of stereotypes, with clarity, reasoning and facts.
In Greece, more than anywhere else, the model for financing mass media is problematic. The bigger, established media belong to either major construction or shipping companies, which, as they vie for state contracts, become perennially entangled with successive governments. Moreover, the economic crisis of the past years dramatically reduced spending in advertising. The biggest television and radio stations today are bankrupt and on the brink of collapse but, more importantly, have lost the battle for credibility.
ThePressProject disputes the existing financial model and pursues alternative ways to secure funding. It does not accept advertising from Greek banks or government organizations, (since such sources of advertising in Greece have been linked to the manipulation of information) and is making an effort to rely on its readers/audience.
Its power lies with its audience. In just two years, TPP has been receiving almost two million unique visits each month, in a country where Internet connections are less than five million. For its international edition, TPP needs more support from all those who want to know what is really going on in the country with the gravest crisis in Europe.
ThePressProject was first to publish the Greek diplomatic cables from Wikileaks, produced a documentary about the crisis (‘Debtocracy’), which was seen around the globe, (more than two million views on YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion) and kept the public broadcaster ERT on air, providing it with media servers when the government decided to shut it down overnight. At the moment, it is solely because of the TPP that one can watch, in Greece and abroad, the broadcasts still being produced by the ex-staff of ERT.
As the crisis grew, so did people’s need for real journalism and consequently ThePressProject, responding to the need for a different voice. We hope that with your help we will be able to offer a different view of what is happening in Greece. Maybe at some point it might concern