One of the biggest newspaper in Greece closes it doors to news. “Eleytherotypia” is the first newspaper published right after the dictatorship, on July 21, 1975 and within a year it was established in one of the large circulation newspapers.
The sudden but in fact rather expected end was announced on Tuesday noon, when the publisher Mania Tegopoulou reveals to the newspaper staff, that Alpha Bank did not approved the requested loan of 20 billion euro. Tegopoulou announced that she cannot meet her obligations and she had to proceed directly to the closure of the newspaper.
It is worth noting that the once mighty newspaper in recent years faced financial problems and the staff was unpaid during the last three months.
However it seems that the publisher was persuaded by the editors to keep publishing the newspaper, so there will be an edition tomorrow.
UPDATE: It looks that tomorrow’s edition will be the last one. Tegopoulou announced to the staff that the newspaper will remain closed for some 6 months and then it will start again with new ownership (and staff probably).
The media sector is the second most hit by the economic crisis after the construction sector. the number of unemployed journalists is not known. But I know people who work full time jobs for even 400 euro, no insurance…
