This was certainly one of the most fear-mongering propaganda launched by journalists to influence voter. Fined-tuned with the government propaganda against main opposition left-wing SYRIZA before the elections for the European Parliament last Sunday.
It was one of Greece’s biggest private television channels that for consecutive three consecutive days it was bombarding its audience and terrorizing them with the most creepy scenarios of the catastrophe that would break over our heads and the country and even over the whole planet should voters cast their votes for SYRIZA and give them a power with fatal economic consequences.
Does this sound exaggerated? Believe me it’s not exaggerated at all. This is and this has been the miserable mainstream media reality since the country entered the IMF & Co mechanism in 2010. A bitter reality voters get confronted with, short before the three elections that took place since then.
While in May and June 2012 elections the dilemma was “euro or drachma” – translated into votes for Nea Dimokratia and PASOK vs SYRIZA – during the EP elections the dilemma imposed by Samaras and Venizelos was “stability or instability.”
But how could instability look like, despite the fact that SYRIZA had not Greece’s exit from the euro are in his elections luggage?
Private ANT1 TV knew better. Its reporters featured during the prime time news the fatal consequences of a clear SYRIZA win and a clear defeat of the coalition government parties.
Reporter Giorgos Kouros
” The overthrow espoused by SYRIZA can lead to prolonged instability. In its turn the political instability will trigger centrifugal tendencies among the Members of the Parliament resulting in the setback in the economy and the cancellation of the sacrifices of the people due to the exodus of investors .” This will “stimulate the appetite of the markets’ speculators who will start again attacking our country. If the vote aims to punish [the government] the first who will regret it will be the punishers themselves.
Report Nikos Rogakos
“We need political stability. Are we permitting to turn over the churn with the milk now? The economy is recovering – the country and the economy need stability – we should not risk the economy with out vote. The relaxed vote can lead to suffocation of the economy , the discussion on debt relief will freeze and the country will reach one step away before bankruptcy ‘ .
The most horrifying scenario though was the one in a form of a documentary with the title “Vote with special weight” explaining how the world will go under should SYRIZA win the EP elections :
“First of all, Greece would be economically destroyed and take down Europe as well, that in its turn will take down America. The American collapse will cause the collapse of Russia and therefore the economic collapse of the whole planet.” (excerpts via tvxs.gr)
“The title of this documentary would also be SYRIZA and the Second Advent of Christ“, commented journalist Stelios Kouloglou in an article sharply criticizing his colleagues.
The outcry in social media was immense. Even the normally slowly reacting in journalist’s code issues, the Journalists Union ESHEA issued a statement saying:
“These individual behaviors not only are directly directed against the democratic institutions they are undoubtedly trespassing and ignoring the rules of journalistic ethics,” and called for the intervention of the National Broadcasting Council. (ESR), apparently considering as a violation of the legislation referring to “elections and broadcasting”.
Title “all these who want stability and do not want [early] elections should show it in the ballot box”
Answering to criticism, ANT1 prime time news presenter Maria Houkli spoke “of a bad moment”.
Nikos Rogagos defended himself asking “am I not allowed to say my opinion as an economic news reporter?”
At the very end, ANT1’s “psychological war” to demonize enemy SYRIZA succeeded even if only partially. SYRIZA came first in the EP elections with 26.58%, ND second with 22.7% and PASOK fourth with 8%.
Maybe the voters had fallen asleep in front of their television screens and their snoring was louder than the trumpets announcing the end of the world.
Meanwhile, the government propaganda against SYRIZA continues still four days after the elections. ND and PASOK keep claiming that “SYRIZA did not win but lost more than 120,000 voters since June 2012 elections,” when ND lost 500,000 voters and PASOK 300,000.
PS if our lenders and the European taxpayers knew what fear-mongering attacks we have been exposed to since 2010 by the mainstream media to swallow the austerity program, they would have pity with us. Honestly.
That was the end of the world in 2012. Ops, that was just a Hollywood film!
