The last owner of progressive Greek daily Elefterotypia, Mania Tegopoulou died at the age of 60 on Tuesday. She has been hospitalized in a private hospital awaiting for liver transplant. She was reportedly suffering from cirrhosis of the liver.
Tegopoulou was the owner of Eleftehrotypia after the death of her father, Kitsos Tegopoulos, one of most prominent publishers in Greece, in 2008.
Published since 21 July 1975, it was the first newspaper to appear after the fall of the Regime of the Colonels, and for most of its time it has been one of the two most widely circulated newspapers in the country. Generally taking a center-left, socialist stance, it was highly respected for its independence and impartiality.
Founded as a cooperative owned by its journalists, it was nicknamed “the newspaper with 80 editors-in-chief”. It was however soon taken over by the Tegopoulos brothers, and was published by businessman Christos (“Kitsos”) Tegopoulos, retaining its traditional socialist domestic and international stance.
In the era of Serafim Fintanidis, who had been editor-in-chief from 1976 until 2006, Eleftherotypia sold up to 160,448 copies and had more than 800 employees.
For several years, Eleftherotypia had also an English edition.
Inmidst the Greek financial crisis, Eleftherotypia was hit hard by dwindling revenues. Because of financial problems, Tegopoulos Publishing was unable to pay its employees from August 2011.
Mania Tegopoulou fired more than half of the personnel and drastically cut wages which she considered much too high.
The newspaper filed for bankruptcy in 2011.
It was briefly taken over by a new publisher, but it was finally shut down in November 2014.
