I just about had it with Greek news!
A carnival of clowns
I was an early (and avid) reader of Greek newspapers when most of my high school fellow students preferred playing billiards (something that could have landed them in police custody in the 1960s).
In those days we got our news from newspapers and, to a lesser extend, from radio broadcasts. Reporters back then did make an effort to feed readers with verified stories both Greek and foreign. Senior editors made sure that what appeared in their papers was verified information covering both Greek and foreign developments. I spent significant time to absorb the news and try to understand what caused domestic and international “crises” and other sudden events.
Later, when I landed in the US to begin college education in 1972, my first action of the day was always to buy The New York Times or borrow it from the library (back them you could have your copy for a mere 25 cents).
I literally absorbed information in a way that allowed me to make intelligent remarks both in class as well as at the college cafeteria pertaining to the latest in politics and international affairs. While my fellow students focused on their breakfast omelets, sausage, toast and coffee, I was “analyzing” what I read so that I could make intelligent remarks in and out of class.
When, many years later, I landed in Scotland to begin my graduate studies, and write my doctoral thesis (which turned out to be 445 pages long), I spent inordinate time at the National Library filling notebooks upon notebooks of details to support my dissertation arguments (an estimated 40 such notebooks were sadly lost due to improper delivery to Greece).
Later, while serving in the Hellenic Navy’s Intelligence A2 Directorate, I was up to date in a variety of subjects well beyond my superiors to the point I was eventually allowed to write reports on domestic and international developments, which were classified, after a reading by superiors, to the highest security level when my own clearance (Sensitive but Unclassified) was only one step up from civilian personnel and most junior officers).
Today almost all news is at a puppet show level produced by functionally illiterates, who act like circus comedians while enjoying fat salaries, and gathering bravoes by audiences who, I suspect, are not all that different than those who deliver all this supposedly superior information. Thankfully, the explosion of online news via sources high and low (and almost all of them from developed countries) fill the utter vacuum we are treated to.
Still, hope of improvement dies last—but, first, we need to demobilize and sent all these “newscasters” home.
Otherwise, an already comedic situation will inevitably turn into a daily tragedy…
It is a tragedy.