Why does ThePressProject need (support for) its English, international edition?
English-speakers seeking coverage of Greece from Greek media sources have to rely almost exclusively on Greek “systemic” (mainstream) media: media outlets with budgets big enough to support English editions.
The Greek media outlet with the most robust and dynamic English edition is Kathimerini, a right-wing newspaper aligned with the New Democracy Party. Other media sources with large English-language internet presences are the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (a news agency like Reuters, the AP, AFP, etc.) and ERT (the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation), which is state-owned.
This means that, currently, there is no major English-language source for the kind of alternative, hard-hitting, independent and investigative journalism that ThePressProject provides for its Greek readership.
In the past, ThePressProject had been able to sustain a more robust English presence. During the 2015 summer of the ‘Greferendum’, ThePressProject maintained a live English-language news feed. Journalists and media sites from around the world (including the Guardian) turned to that feed for the latest, most accurate, in-depth and moment-by-moment coverage of events.
The international edition particularly suffered, however, when ThePressProject’s founder and visionary, Costas Efimeros, unexpectedly passed away on June 13, 2017, at the age of 42. With Costas’ passing, we lost the critical revenue stream that he managed to bring through proceeds from his own coding business, Bits n Bytes. But despite that tragic loss, the team labored to keep the Greek site up and running, all while remaining committed to Efimeros’ vision and ethics.
Recently, we have been working hard to get our international edition back up and running. For an example of recent English-language content, please take a look at our recent special feature dedicated to Greece’s putative ‘exit’ from the bailout programs this past summer, with contributions from Mark Blyth, Yanis Varoufakis, Paul Mason, and others.
If, however, ThePressProject is to increase its English-language content, it needs its international readers’ support—needs your support—more than ever.
Why support ThePressProject?
A misapprehension has spread internationally that, with Greece’s ‘exit’ from the bailout programs this past August, the Greek economy is now out of the woods. This is, in other words, the false narrative of ‘Grecovery’ Other Greek media outlets with English editions are run by conservative political interests and actively work, with representatives of the Greek government, to spread and entrench that narrative.
We need ThePressProject to combat this mistruth and inform the international public of the real situation on the ground. And while Greece might be out of the media spotlight these days, its affairs—including the continued refugee crisis and rise of the extreme right—are of as much global significance as ever.
ThePressProject has always been funded exclusively by readers’ donations. Now, most Greek readers have already given whatever they were able to spare, which means that donations have substantially slowed. This is one of the reasons that international support of ThePressProject will be critical for its continued work.
We encourage you, then, to support ThePressProject. If you happen to have a friend or colleague who would also be interested in supporting independent journalism in Greece, we ask that you let them know about us and the kind of work that we do.
More about ThePressProject
ThePressProject is a member of a number of international journalism networks: The Intercept, Project Syndicate, openDemocracy, PoliticalCritique.org, The European Center for Press and Media Freedom, International Press Institute, and Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso. Contributors to ThePressProject have included Julian Assange, Mark Blyth, Srećko Horvat, Paul Mason, and Yanis Varoufakis.
The international significance of ThePressProject has been recognized by the Guardian, the New York Times, Zeit, and Liberation, among others.
“Outlets like … The Press Project are trying investigative journalism in a country that does not always embrace the undertaking.”
–The New York Times, Greeks question media, and new voices pipe up
“[The] Press Project's journalists have found plenty. They've decoded and indexed every single official decision and details of every public works contract and tenders — and in the process uncovered numerous questionable transactions.”
–NPR, Greece’s economic crisis reveals fault lines in the media
‘“Follow the money,’ says the alternative news portal The Press Project, which was founded in Athens in 2010 and has earned a reputation as an independent medium. ‘Society’s mistrust has a very tangible component: the oligarchs pay for news and determine its content.’”
–Zeit, Medien in Griechenland: Dann schreiben sie eben selbst
“As the government tried to cut the power to ERT’s antennas, Mr. Efimeros and his team tapped into satellite signals broadcast surreptitiously by ERT employees and posted them to the group’s Web site and on social media.”
–The New York Times, News finds new ways to flow as Greek state broadcaster is shut