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Greek Government Abruptly Shuts Down State Broadcaster
An anonymous reader writes "The Greek government shut down broadcasting of all TV and radio channels operated by the state-owned broadcaster ERT at midnight local time, with police ejecting journalists and other employees occupying the building. The above link is a prominent Greek economics professor's (and Valve's in-house economist) analysis of the political motivations for the move."
I wonder if that means lower taxes...
This particular article's summary just states the facts. There is no stated point-of-view in the summary! All Slashdot submissions must have a POV! Please, Help! tell me what to think! Heeeeelp!
Even with his last words on the subject Yanis Varoufakis' blog worships the statist centralism of ERT that was exploited, used as a propaganda machine, and silenced critics. What would it take to break his delusions and help him realize that the entire infrastructure was beyond saving? Way to hop on the Murdoch-hate bandwagon, Yanis.
Call be cynical, but maybe a little capitalism would have been good in Greece. You know, for the ol' economy.
Only on
That's kind of weird. We hear about governments shutting down all broadcast media other than state-owned media so often that the opposite is just...bizarre...
What's the rest of Greece's commercial broadcast media like? What was this organization like? The only analogues I have are NPR and PBS for "state owned" and that's not necessarily entirely accurate, and that private broadcast media here in the US is often very, very heavily biased, even moreso when they make claims to the contrary.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
i should tell you that i feel very happy about that decision
* They said that the "ERT tax" on power bills will be over (it was about 10-30% of the bill, depending on the size of the bill, believe it or not!)
* In the same time that they ask for minimum wage to be lower than 500euros/month, they were hiring journalists with ten times this wage in order to control them. You can read about that in Varoufakis blog.
ERT was a House Of Corruption. It should have been shut down years ago.
Not only was it a propaganda station, but it was also full of employees that did not have a job description, but they were employed by politicians in order to vote for them.
2500 employees for 3 channels and 1 radio station.
Considering how often we the people in the US have our own votes stolen, I'm a bit miffed you would say they deserve what they get.
State-owned television is too transparent.
Better to have state-licensed, state-influenced, and state-monitored television... It's clearly much more effective.
Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.
... John Adams
Some nations are not what they seem. Europe has many of these- pseudo nations that exist to serve the geopolitical purposes of their neighbours. Greece hasn't been relevant since the time Ancient Rome took control.
Greece only hits the news today because the chumps that 'rule' that laughable region do something like ban all hand-held computer games, and promise to imprison tourists that travel with their 'gameboys' (yes, this actually happened for real, when the corrupt Greek politicians banned ALL computer gaming devices to hit out at the businesspeople who were running gambling machines without giving the said politicians their cut of the action).
Today, Greece is an extreme-right-wing satellite of Israel (Greece funnelled Israeli weapons of mass destruction to the Serbian butchers when Serbs were exterminating the Muslims of Bosnia- the famous bread-queue bombings were carried out with Israeli fragmentation weapons, honed to slaughter civilians in Gaza and Lebanon).
LOLZ
What the fuck is a communist nazi?
... whatever
In TFA, Varoufakis talks about the value of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, or ERT to Greece.
In light of the well publicised financial problems faced by the government in Greece today, can Greece affored to keep it open?
The government's excuse is thus :-
Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou – a former state TV journalist – described ERT as a "haven of waste". He said its employees would be compensated.
Kedikoglou said in a televised statement aired on the state broadcaster: "At a time when the Greek people are enduring sacrifices, there is no room for delay, hesitation or tolerance for sacred cows.
"ERT is a typical example of unique lack of transparency and incredible waste. And that ends today," Kedikoglou said. "It costs three to seven times as much as other TV stations and four to six times the personnel – for a very small viewership, about half that of an average private station."
ERT has long been seen as a bastion of quality programming in a media landscape dominated by commercial stations. But it was also used by successive governments to provide safe jobs for political favourites, and, while nominally independent, devoted considerable time and effort to showcasing administration policies.
Source here
Granted the government's self-interest is to spin this story in their favour, but unless they are lying, given the fact that there are more urgent public sector needs that need to be met (eg. hospitals, food kitchens etc) the reasons they gave seem fairly reasonable in the circumstances.
Ok so here's a bigger picture of what led to the shut down.
1) The ERT (National Radio) was a way for decades for the goverment to reward supporters with well-payed tenured jobs.
2) As a result, there are hundreds of people working there who get payed for menial tasks.
3) The Troika has demanded that about 2500 people working for the public sector will be fired before the end of June. 150.000 before the end of 2014.
4) A large privatisation programme that was a requirement from the Troika to continue the Greek bail out failed on Monday (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jun/10/greek-gas-supplier-selloff-gazprom )
As a result shutting down ERT hits two birds with one stone: It allows them to fire more than the minimum 2500 that was required, and also distracts the public opinion from mondays failure that is sure to bring more austerity measures. The goverment claims that the shutdown was justified because of the corruption and thriftlessness of the organization, while the governing party was the one that helped create them.
Around here, where I vote, a conservative and a liberal is pretty much the same thing. I think you're missing a part of the political spectrum if those are the only two words you have to fling around. And I'm no more closer to an explanation of the elusive communist nazi after reading your reply.
... whatever
I do not speak Greek or are able to evaluate the quality of the public TV-station there, but I know that in Germany the public TV plays an important role in fighting dumb TV for the masses with some of their information programs (even though they also provide shows which can only be watched if you had a lobotomy, just like the US TV ;-)). So from that point of view, I think this is a bad move for Greece. The Greek should start a new public TV station funded by the public and controlled by a council where every group of the Greek population has a seat in (no payments) and they have to agree on consensus on elections for directors. that will realize an independent media house, which is in high demand in Greece (and the rest of Europe).
BTW: I personally do not like the way Greece have been treated by the rest of the EU, especially Merkel, but I also think, they should get rid of their present politicians and demand more public influence in all processes. A little like Switzerland.
It is announced that until August there will be a new public TV replacing the old one. But everyone's fear is if the new company will hire people from the "back door" as the old one did.
You must live in the USA, like me. 10 years ago, conservatives and liberals were definitely two different things. But now with Obama duplicating all of Bush's policies and all the liberals supporting him, "liberal" and "conservative" are basically the same thing.
Now watch a bunch of liberals come out of the woodwork to call me names or act as Obama apologists.
A major issue is how this thing went on
Essentially the PM decided and enforced the decision in an afternoon without going through parliament or even securing the agreement of the other two parties of the coalition goverment (the PM's party does not have a majority)
Then sent the riot police to secure the studios and the infrastructure and make sure the signal goes down
It is surprisingly authoritarian for a nominally democratic goverment
1. It was one of the worst channels on greek TV and I doubt anyone will miss it
2. Since always everyone was complaining about the fee they had to pay for it every month. Saying I dont want to pay for state television is the same as saying it should close down. Now all the people who side with the ones fired from ERT are just a pretentious mass. They didn't support ERT when it was working, now they can't act all high and mighty and on their side because it closed
3. ERT was another corrupted part of the public sector. It was a channel with horrible censorship and with people in higher positions paid more than they should've been. There were more than a few incidents when ERT refused to show things in the news that ALL the other channels were showing. As someone put it "ERT, you weren't there for us when all of that was already happening to us for years now, why should be there for you?"
4. Comparing ERT to the BBC/CNN is a horrible insult for both of these channels. ERT was worse than FOX news and people complaining about how greece is left only with private channels don't seem to understand that all those private channels are and have always been much better than the mess that ERT was.
You must live in the USA
No I don't. Around here (Denmark), a liberal is just a slightly less extreme version of a conservative, and both would be placed securely on the right side of the scale. I don't follow US politics very closely, but to me it seems the democrats and the republicans are pretty much the same thing - corporate apologists.
... whatever
So they shut down the quality-news-broadcast network and set free a pile of professionals, some of them well known I guess.
Will that mean that Greece will now emerge getting a professional quality-news-podcast-network and will that mean that there has to be a reason to shut down the internets, too?
*cough* USgasolinesubsidies*cough*
Yep, you got it exactly right.
Wow, that's pretty depressing. I thought Denmark was supposed to be a lot better than that. At least you guys have the most bike-friendly city in the world, and a decent healthcare system.
From what little I know about Danish politics (gleaned from Borgen, and from a nice lady who gave us a walking tour of Copenhagen, including Folketing) - the many parties have drifted so far from their original positions over time, that the names of parties are essentially meaningless.
Well the naming part is very much true, but that is because the people naming parties are idiots. The parties don't drift, the scale changes beneath them.
We have a party named "left" that is very much on the right. Originally they were the left party, and their opposition was named "right" - but then came those pesky communists and their labor unions and all of a sudden, left was on the right and the commies were on the left :) At least the original "right" party had the good sense to change name to "conservative". Left was just left with left, on the right.
... whatever
You mean "Dansk Folkeparti"? The Republican Party would condemn it as wildly racist.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
You mean "Dansk Folkeparti"? The Republican Party would condemn it as wildly racist.
No, I don't mean DF. What I mean is, that if you project the entire political spectrum in Denmark (or any country inside the EU, I suspect) over onto a line, and plot in all the parties you get a line with pretty evenly spaced dots on it. If you then take the republican party and the democratic party and plot them on the same line, they would both land somewhere to the right of the middle.
... whatever
I'm curious about the ability he had to do this. The Prime Minister in the UK could push a bill through parliament cancelling the BBC's charter and/or its funding, but couldn't actually shut it down. If he sent police in to clear the building then the police would be acting illegally and I'd expect them to refuse.
So it's interesting that the Greek PM didn't face such barriers.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quidquid_latine_dictum_sit,_altum_videtur
CAPTCHA: "damned"
Doctor Who has a number of things going for it. One, it's about fifty years old, so it didn't have an awful lot of television competition. Two, it did build up a cult following over the 1970's and early 1980's. Doctor Who *did* get axed. It got axed because the Controller didn't much care for the show, it got scheduled against Coronation Street (the #1 TV show then in that particular time-slot) and using the excuse of low audience numbers, the axe fell. Though officially the show was "resting".
That cult following actually led to Doctor Who coming back again. Funny when the children who grew up on Doctor who become Television Producers. .
I think what he means that the term "liberal" itself means "conservative" over there, and also that American abuse of that term to refer to Democrats actually has meaning with that interpretation of the word. Not that Denmark only has less right-wing and more right-wing parties (but their left-wing party probably calls itself "labor" or "socialist").
The Greek government will be restarting the broadcaster, just under new management and with a lot fewer staff... It's a reboot, not a shutdown.
In the United States, the meaning of liberalism has parted significantly from classical liberalism, it has been renamed libertarianism and is associated with "economically conservative" and "socially liberal" political views. Modern American "liberal" is associated with social liberalism with support for social justice and a mixed economy.
- "Venstre", the Liberal Party of Denmark, is a conservative-liberal political party in Denmark. (near Libertarian)
- The Danish Liberal Alliance is a classical liberal political party in Denmark. (Libertarian)
Your Danish friend is a little confused by your use of "liberal". In the United States, the meaning of liberalism has parted significantly from classical liberalism, it has been renamed libertarianism.
When a Danish person talks about liberals it's safer to assume he means his "economically conservative" and "socially liberal" political parties.
- The biggest party in Denmark is the pro-free market Liberal Party.
- The Liberal Alliance Party of Denmark is even more Libertarian.
Yeah, it's the American use of "liberal" which has shifted away from classic liberalism (libertarianism).
Our "socialist" parties are usually called Social-Democrats, at least in Northern Europe.
Its not illegal strictly speaking, but it stretches the law to its limits.
He used something like an executive order that allows the prime minister to pass legisltative acts overnight. They are considered laws directly but have to be approved by the parliament within 40 days. Legaly it exists to be used only in immediate emergencies etc. but has been routinely used lately for all kinds of things. Essentially he does what he likes, raises hell, creates a precedent and has about a month to get the paliament to agree.
Regarding the police, they went in following a judge's order too so technically the whole thing was not illegal.
Im not aware of the details on how the BBC works but my impression is that its less dependent on the state than its greek counterpart.
In a few months maybe both the legistlative and the judicial decisions could be overturned but the damage has already been done
For anyone interested, a balanced view by a journalist working at ERT who'll likely be losing his job now: http://www.eyedoll.gr/ngine/article/1779/%CE%B4%CE%B5%CE%BD-%CF%80%CE%AC%CE%B5%CE%B9-%CF%83%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%AC%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BF-%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9-%CE%B7-%CE%B5%CF%81%CF%84 I'm sure the non-Greek speakers among you can google translate or babelfish it. the tl;dr is he realizes that the broadcaster is a morass of mediocrity and corruption (dozes of "special advisors to the CEO" being paid extravagant salaries for doing nothing), he says that much simpler solutions to the broadcaster's problems that did not involve shuttering it had been proposed and ignored, and that therefore its closing must be motivated by the government's cosiness with private broadcasting interests.