In an surprise move, managing director of state broadcaster NERIT Antonis Makrydimitris and deputy CEO Rodolfos Moronis submitted their resignation on Thursday afternoon.Both Makrydimitris and Moronis were appointed to these positions by the Greek government and are reportedly members of Nea Dimokratia.
Although there no no immediate press release on theside of NERIT or the government minister in charge, Moronis wrote on his Twitter account criticising the politicla leadership and his former employers:
“If you declare that you want to create something independent, objective and of good quality but you don’t mean it, don’t assign the job to someone who does,” Moronis wrote.
Soon after the resignation the background that led to it became known: there was apparently governmental intervention from the side of the government with reference of the Live Streaming from Thessaloniki International Trade Fair where leader of main opposition left-wing SYRIZA is to deliever a speech and hold a press conference over the weekend.
NERIT had agree with SYRIZA to broadcast live both events but allegedly the government intervened to prohibit the broadcast of press conference on Sunday. According to media reports, because Prime Minister Antonis Samaras had only one live streaming from international Trade Fair – that is his speech – as he did not hold a press conference.
SYRIZA spokesman Panos Skourletis spoke of a “crude intervention” amid reports of political pressure on the state broadcaster not to provide live coverage of a scheduled speech by SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras.
According to media reports, NERIT’s CEO Antonis Makrydimitris, and his deputy Rodolfos Moronis quit due to government pressure not to cover Tsipras’ appearances in Thessaloniki live.
Skourletis told Skai that he contacted Makrydimitris after hearing the reports and that the latter reassured him that there would be live coverage of Tsipras. But the tensions that followed led the NERIT CEO and his deputy to resign, a development that came just four months after the former replaced Giorgos Prokopakis at the helm of the organization. (ekathiomerini & other sources)
Times are hard for state broadcaster NERIT, the successor of ERT that was abruptly closed down by Samaras government in June 2013 allegedly because it was a “center of nepotism and clientelism” and it was “wasting millions of euro”.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor investigates the hiring process of NERIT employees, while an Athens court ordered the re-hiring of sacked ERT personnel. And now this! The resignation of the two CEOs.
PS the traditional diseases of the Greek state have no cure….
