Lies, damned lies and Greek opinion polls

Yesterday the world's financial markets rose like a helium balloon on the news that weekend opinion polls in Greece showed that the conservative, pro-memorandum party, New Democracy was ahead. Even the Athens Stock Exchange got a respite from a nosedive that has seen its index fall to figures last seen in the 1990s.

There are many possible explanations for New Democracy's reversal of fortunes. Antonis Samaras has been building a conservative coalition and perhaps many voters who would have voted for smaller right wing parties are now transferring their votes to him as the only viable centre right alternative to SYRIZA.

On the other hand the constant barrage of predictions on TV about possible exit from the Eurozone has frightened older voters who fear their life savings will evaporate should the drachma be reintroduced and so perhaps signals a swing back to more mainstream politics.

Yet, according to an insightful analysis there may be another more concrete reason for the sudden challenge to the popularity of Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA). In the opinion of Greek blogger, Alepouda there is a systematic bias in polls conducted in Greece with the upshot that means that estimates of SYRIZA's share of the vote are wildly off. The most inaccurate being a GPO poll carried out for the current affairs programme, Anatropes on MEGA TV on the 25th April, just weeks before the 6th May elections. According to the poll SYRIZA was predicted to get 6.2% whilst the final election result was 16.78%. Strangely, the results for both PASOK and New Democracy were less than 2% off.

Nor is this anomaly limited to GPO, other pollsters have revealed similar deviations in their estimates of SYRIZA's electoral strength. Indeed, according to Alepouda's infographics the average result opinion poll researchers claimed for SYRIZA was 9.1%, more than 7 percentage points lower than their final figure. In the case of all other political parties the difference was less than 1%.

How to explain such  amazing accuracy in the case of every other party apart from SYRIZA? Statistically, there seems to be no logical explanation for such a large error. On the other hand, more sceptically minded commentators might be left with the impression that the media war being waged upon Greek parties opposed to austerity measures is not limited to the mainstream press but has extended to those companies that rely on such media outlets for their very survival.

Reporters Sans Frontiers on reporting in Greece: "Photographers and cameramen are more and more at risk as they encounter situations akin to civil war"

Reporters Sans Frontiers on reporting in Greece: "Photographers and cameramen are more and more at risk as they encounter situations akin to civil war", a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

"The impact of the crisis has radicalized a sector of the population, which expresses its anger and frustration in increasingly violent demonstrations. Photographers and cameramen are more and more at risk as they encounter situations akin to civil war in the course of trying to cover the activities of these grass-roots movements.

Caught between the violence of the extremist movements and the violence of anti-riot police who show little respect for their professional status, photographers are paying a high price for the coverage they give us."

http://en.rsf.org/grece-could-the-crisis-help-media-14-09-2011,40986.html

Everything you ever wanted to know about how Greek media works in one photo.

Everything you ever wanted to know about how Greek media works in one photo., a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

In the foreground a local TV news program with riot police forming a line to prevent protesters moving forward to demonstrate against Greek prime minister's visit to Thessaloniki town hall.

The media here, especially that funded by the state (as is the case with the station pictured above) is little more than publically funded propaganda designed to present those in power in the best possible light. Dull, biased and impossibly amateur these channels pump out a daily diet of press announcement and valedictory speeches which the vast majority of viwers simply ignore.

Since selection and promotion within such organisations depends on connections (bothe personal and political) and above loyalty to ones superiors quality and talent are often after thoughts which explains why so much money buys such bad TV.

You the people....Or not as the case may be. Greek government vote of confidence

You the people...., a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

Against my better judgement I found myself staying up late to follow the Greek government vote of confidence last night. Not so much to find out the result, that was a foregone conclusion after prime minister,Giorgos Papandreou's cabinet reshuffle/meltdown last week. But rather to follow the reaction of Greeks on Twitter and those gathered outside parliament in Syntagma Square, Athens.

Despite the presence of a huge crowd outside parliament the local media and especially state run TV news did their best to ignore the fact, meaning that any Greek wanting to gauge the reaction of his/her fellow citizens would have been better off going to foreign news sites than his own national media. This is a sad indictment of how mainstream news in Greece, like its political institutions considers only those within its own tight orbit worthy of attention. The rest of the population is looked upon as creatures as distant and exotic and galloping gazelles in Kenya.

I don't think many Greek Twitter users believed that the ruling PASOK government was in any real danger of falling despite the breathless commentary offered by TV stations worldwide, but their anger over the politicians in parliament flew back and forth with ever increasing intensity, tinged with a particularly Greek mixture of frustration,anger and satire.

Outside parliament Greece's indignados used laser pens to project the word "thief" on the walls of the building, that is when not trying to blind TV cameras, another indication of the level of antagonism this movement feels towards local mainstream media.

At 2AM the final vote came in, 155 in favour of the government, 143 against and 2 absent, including rather mysteriously Dora Bakoyianni , ex - cabinet minister and the leader of the newly minted Democratic Alliance party .



Of course the markets and Grece's creditors will take the vote to mean that parliament is on track to pass the new austerity measures being demanded by ECB and German politicians and so the smart money will make a quick killing selling off position acquired during this week's market funk, knowing full well that the vote is essentially meaningless, as was last week's cabinet reshuffle in terms of winning over the Greek electorate.

The reality is that the austerity package is deeply unpopular and seen as a slow death for the Greek economy, any political group alligning itself with it faces political suicide in the next elections.Even if the legislation is passed the level of resistance towards Papandreou and the troika of lenders dictating terms is likely to grow making attempts to put it into action difficult and in the long term probably futile.

The most likely result is more street protests, large scale industrial action and the resurgence of civil disobedience campaigns such as the "I won't Pay" movement which successfully encourages drivers to not pay highway tolls and public transport passengers to ride without buying tickets.

The insistence of foreign and especially German polticians and bankers that Grece knuckle under is also feeding a groundswell of nationalist feeling, always a powerful and unpredictable element in Greek political life, though still not clearly formulated the continued pressure from Berlin and Frankfurt is drawing comparisons with Greece's painful occupation by Nazi Germany during the Second World war, a volitile analogy that does not bode well for future European  co-operation.

The real showdown will come next week when the austerity package comes to a parliamentary vote, then we'll see if Papandreou will be able to hold together his fragile party alliances in the face of massive public protests and the prospect of MPs returning to their constituencies and outraged voters during the summer recess..

Greece and the Neo - Orwellians

 

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth."

Unlike the pontiffs of old Greek prime minister Giorgos Papandreou seems able to be an unlikely follower of the dogma of papal infallibility in which a move from one theological/ideological position to its exact opposite can be achieved without having erred in either case. On 23rd May Papandreou stated categorically to El Pais that Athens would not ask for its mountain of debt to be restructured, a position he repeated in a BBC interview in September and on 16th November to El Figaro, going so far as to say such a move would be a "disaster for Greeks".

Yet just last week the IMF/EU/ECB decided to extend the payment schedule for Greece's bailout out package from five to 11 years and this is now being hailed by the government and much of the media as a kiss of life for the country. It's interesting to see how the state run channels and pro-government TV stations such as MEGA, Skai and Antenna have promoted this latest change of heart without the slightest reference to previous government statements which held that such policies were not in the nation's interest.

In a repelling way it is fascinating to see how the ideas George Orwell espoused in 1984 are still revelent is a seemingly democratic regime with a free press. The truth, however, is the press in Greece is neither free nor independent but rather beholden to powerful political and economic interests which limit the parameters of what is acceptable in terms of political discussion. One only has to compare the rough ride given Ireland's ruling politicians following their bailout with the servile treatment of their Greek counterparts by local media. In many repects its hard to tell the difference between the official government line and that taken by the reporters who are covering domestic political matters.

The reality of the matter is that the press have sided with those in power in the hope of persuading ordinary Greeks that the massive social and economic dislocation they are suffering is inevitable and that any possible protests against PASOK's austerity measures are futile and anti-productive. This may, indeed by the case, but the stiffling of free and open debate about the options Greece has in the face of the current economic crisis is both dangerous and short sighted as it is steadily undermining respect for the government and democratic institutions in general.

"Our job is to report the news, not fabricate it. That's the government's job."

In my last post I talked about the role of the media and especially TV in presenting the consequences of the current economic crisis in Greece. I was particularly scathing of the role of the state run channels and the pro - government private stations in their efforts to distort the effects of the IMF/EU mandated austerity measures and present whatever PASOK party does in the best possible light.

Yesterday representatives of the IMF, EU commission and the European Central Bank held a press conference setting out the terms of the next installment of bailout money and outlining what the Greek government had and had not achieved in terms of reducing public spending and raising tax revenue. Considering the recommendations presented are set to change the whole of the Greek economy and involves massive upheavals, wage cuts and job losses  you would think that coverage of the event by the Greek press would be intense. Instead not one station broadcast the conference live and limited their reporting to short snippets which included luke warm praise by the troika of Greeec'e efforts so far. This was the line that was presented by most of the TV news bulletins along with prononouncements by experts that Greece had no choice but to accept such changes.

Instead there was extensive live reporting of a routine visit by a the head of the Cypriot republic which was attended by the prime minister, Giorgos Papandreou. Rather than reporting live a story which is set to effect the vast majority of the Greek population the media chose to focus attention on a mundane diplomatic story. As I said before the government and its supporters in the private sector are desperately trying to hide the fact that despite all the rhetoric about protecting jobs and living standards the ruling PASOK party have been forced time and time again to back down and accept everything the country's creditors have put forward.At the same time they have been required to engage in Orwellian feats of linguistic gymnastics in which cuts are called readjustmenst and savage criticsm termed positive feedback. In fact anything that covers the truth that the country is bankrupt and no longer responsible for virtually any aspect of economic policy.

 Indeed the IMF, EU and ECB by timing their report on Greece till after the country's recent elections (out of 27 EU countries, only Greece's report was delayed) you could argue that they have directly involved themselves in national politics. If the current measures which were inspired by the Eurostat's report on the economy had been announced on 27th October as happened with every other EU member) there is a good chance that Giorgos Papandeou's party would have suffered massive defeat and the country would be in the run up to national elections as has happened in Ireland.

The quote in the post's title is originally from V For Vendetta.

PR and punishment - Greek police's new zero tolerance policy

6.12.2009, originally uploaded by e_vra.

The Greek media has been full of praise of the way in which the recently elected PASOK government as handled the disturbances over the last few days. The new zero - tolerance policing policy announced by the minister for the protection of the citizen, Mihalis Chrisoidis has been credited with limiting the extent of violence, especially in Athens.

On the other hand the TV channels have gleefully lapped up images of young protesters throwing rocks and stones at the riot police and have been flooding the airways with stories of anarchist plots and police discoveries of caches of petrol bombs and other rioting paraphenalia. In addition the record numbers of detentions and arrests have been presented in a positive light, sign that the police have got serious about cracking down on trouble makers.

In a sense this is a repeat of the media coverage of last years uprising when the media spent at least a week blaming Greece's worst civil disturbances ina generation on hooilgans and looters, as if the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets in protests across the nation were nothing more than rampaging football fans looking for a fight.

Once again the media coverage has almost completely ignored the thousands who demonstrated peacefully this year and focused on the scenes of violence which are presented simply as acts of mindless vandalism. Indeed the channels have been falling over each other to see who can condemn the protests most, blindly accepting any figure or statement issued by the police, ignoring the opinions of anyone not in a position of authority.

On the other hand the Greek language blogosphere and elsewhere on the internet there is growing resentment of the way of this and especially the way in which the violence of the police has either been played down or completely overlooked. Reporters, who should know better have simply decided to report the official version events and leave out any loose ends such as eyewitness accounts of those actually present.

I personally witnessed what happened during the march on Sunday here in Thessaloniki when the police went into action almost immediately after it started. Just moments after the demonstraters moved off the people from the anarchist block started attacking shops selling religious goods, a supermarket and banks, quickly prompting the riot police and motorcycle units to intervene. The sight of police officers on motorbikes mounting pavements and driving through crowds of people running in panic through clouds of tear gas is not one I'll forget soon.

In the general mayhem the marchers, who are nearly always organised in blocks according to political affiliation, soon scattered and mixed and that is how I ended up with about two hundred others just below the ex-ministry of Macedonia and Thrace surrounded by riot squads who fired tear gas rounds into the group and beat anyone who tried to move away from the area.

Even after it was clear that they had control of the area, officers continued to club and kick those on the ground and refused medical help to the injured, instead shouting insults and threats at anyone who looked at them.

I cannot vouch for the character of each and everyone there but from my knowledge of the groups that regularly take part in marches the vast majority of these people were not trouble makers or bomb throwers. They belonged to student/political groups that abhor such tactics and believe that those who commit such acts damage their cause.

They, like me just happened to be in swept up with a tide of people desperately running away from police with clubs firing tear gas. Like me, they did not break away from the main group knowing full well that in such a situation small groups or individuals are easy prey for police units with a grudge and a truncheon.

The media however, reported that the authorities had isolated and captured a group of anarchists and had confiscated a large number of petrol bombs, gas masks and clubs and that 88 people had been taken in for qustioning and 20 arrested. Despite the presence of a number of TV camera crews for over an hour I saw no footage of those inside the police cordon being asked their opinion or saying what had happened, instead just fleeting glances of people on the floor followed by pictures of the weapons supposedly confiscated.

If their had indeed been such a cache present the density of the crowd and the fact that nobody was searched till hours later would have meant that those carrying such things would have had ample opportunity to get dump them out of their bags or pockets.

What we had instead was PR and punishment, the police knew that whatever version of the truth they put out would be accepted without question and that the sight of them with so many prisoners would vandicate their new get tough policy, irrespctive of whether they'd actually captured anyone who'd broken the law. On the other hand those caught up in this farce would have to endure a night in the cells, possibly weeks in court explaining their case.

The same approach was also true of the events in Athens when motorcycle cops also rode their machines into crowds of demonstrators, seriously injuring a 55 year old teacher, while the footage was shown it was presented as an unfortunate accident. No mention however was made at all of the officer who after gunning his bike into people was pulled off and in a fit of rage drew his pistol and chased them.

I'm not sure what exactly lies behind the new media landscape and why so few reporters have been critical of the present situation but with the Greek media feeling the effects of the country's economic crisis those who own the private media outlets are unlikely to antagonise a government which is in the position to provide a steady revenue stream in the form of ads and contracts.

The truth is out there but not if you read the Greek press

Right wing students attempting to disrupt a wreath laying ceremony - Thessaloniki, Greece, originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

The Greek blogosphere has been full of complaints over the way the mainstream media covered yesterday's Polytechniou Day. It seems there has been a concerted effort to either play down or ignore much of what happened. For example much of Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city was covered in a blanket of tear gas for hours on end as riot police fired round after round of the stuff into the university grounds to supposedly disperse a few dozen protesters.

In addition the clashes between right and left wing student groups in the morning has been less than honest. For example today's Eletherotypia newspaper reported that;

"Επεισόδια σημειώθηκαν και νωρίς το πρωί, την ώρα που άρχιζε η κατάθεση στεφάνων στο μνημείο των πεσόντων, στο προαύλιο της Πολυτεχνικής Σχολής του ΑΠΘ. Ομάδα φοιτητών του Πανεπιστημίου Μακεδονίας που πρόσκεινται στη ΔΑΠ προσπάθησαν να πλησιάσουν για να καταθέσουν στεφάνι, αλλά μέλη νεολαιών της εξωκοινοβουλευτικής Αριστεράς τούς υποδέχτηκαν με πέτρες. Ακολούθησε συμπλοκή στο οδόστρωμα της Εγνατίας οδού που κράτησε περίπου 15-20 λεπτά."

They were incidents early this morning when members of DAP (the student wing of the conservative New Democracy party) attempting to lay a wreath during a ceremony for the victims of the 1973 Polytechnic uprising at the Aristotelion university of Thessaloniki were stoned by members of the student supporters of the extra parliamentary left. The clashes that followed lasted approximately 15 -20 minutes."

www.enet.gr

Well, I happened to be there at the times and as you can see from the picture above the hundred or so DAP members who gathered opposite the university were hardly dressed for a such a solemn ceremony. Nor do those who wish to pay their respects hurl paving stones, bottles and insults at people attending,

There were clashes but from what I saw many of those inside were preparing to defend the shrine set up inside the campus from attack by these hooligans.

So why the discrepancy in the accounts? I'm not sure if it is just indifference, ignorance or a worry that the newspaper's political line must be preserved irrespective of the truth.

Greek forest fires - update

Yesterday at this time virtually every channel in Greece was broadcasting live coverage and commentary on the country's forest fire disaster. The screen was full of dramatic scenes of people fleeing the flames, begging the authorities for help or desperately trying to protect their homes using whatever came to hand. Today: nothing. I have been trying to find out what has happened over night and I can't find a single channel that covering the event anymore. Not one. Instead the TV stations seem more interested in discussing the results of the country's university entrance requirements which were announced this morning.

Although the worst of the fires seems to be over the strong winds blowing in the area still means that there is a chance that the fires could burst back into life. In addition only now can the true extent of the destruction wrought can be assessed. According to the European Forest Fire Information Service 31,000 hectares of forests have been lost in the Attiki region around Athens, more than the last 28 years put together. Click here for pictures of the day after taken in the Dionysos area near Athens,

Prime minister Kostas Karamnlis showed his support for firefighters by visiting them at their airbase in Eleusina. This was very nice of him and it's good to see they hold no hard feeling over the beating and tear gassing their colleagues received in March this year when they demanded the government honour its promise to give them permanent contracts. Also the 1000 other fire fighters who got roughed up by the riot police for asking to be paid for last summer's work will cherish the PM's words of encouragement.

A protest rally is being organised for this Friday at 7pm in Syntagma Square in central Athens.