Talk:Eleftherotypia

Terrorism and POV issues

Michalis Famelis objects to use of the word "murder" to describe the killings of civilians by the terrorist organization of "17N", and wants to whitewash 17N's actions by calling the slayings "attacks" instead, as... more NPOV wording! Quite similar to Eleftherotypia's position, that. Well, I'm sorry, but it is also an insanely biased position, if there ever was one.

When a person is gunned down by automatic weapons in the front entrance to his house, or the street, as 17N's victims were, it is not a vague "attack", it is a murder.

Hello, I will explain here why I'm going to revert much of what you added.

• Concerning the "attacks" vs "murders" case, please note that not all terrorist attacks by the 17N were lethal, for example the 17N luckily enough failed to assasinate Vardinoyannis or Palaiokrassas (where they got Axarlian instead). Moreover many 17N attacks were not assasination attempts, but bombings, robberies etc. However they always sent their proclamations, regardless of weather they had actually killed a person or not. So it is a matter of accuracy to use "attacks.
• Slayings. Even when we are talking about actual assasinations, bear in mind that "slayings" is a very very strong word, whereas "attacks" is accurate and unbiased. The word "attack" is neither biased, nor in any way "vague": an attack against a person is a very specific act of violence against another human being and the sanctity of its life. Violence is always to be condemned but remember that in Wikipedia we leave it to the reader to decide. We dont have to use strong language or bloody words to say that people were killed or injured, readers are intelligent in their own right.
• "socialist line" vs "socialist image". Eleftherotypia is not owned by any political party, so unlike eg Rizospastis it does not convey an official "political line". It does have its affiliations and biases though, which constitute a socialist "image". One could argue that although no official PASOK line is passed throuh Eleftherotypia, unofficially a PASOK line is indeed passed. But that is really a matter of interpretation, so to be factually accurate we must say "socialist image".
• Percieved support of terrorists. This part is largely editorializing. Political disagreement with the terrorists' victims does not constitute support for the terrorists. If you can provide a citation of someone notable we can add to the article that "X said that Eleftherotypia supports terrorists". But to report as undisputable truth that one of the most widely circulated papers in Greece supports terrorists is not only POV but also innacurate.
• Condemnation of anti-terrorist laws. You have used a whole lot of dramatic adjectives that have no place in an NPOV article. "extremely vocal" . But extremely compared to what? Have you read any Rizospastis recently? And who says that the paper is extreme? Citations please...
• Antiamericanism, Al-Quaeda, 9/11 etc No actual citations whatsoever. Is the source the Manolis Vasilakos part? If so please be specific, provide a link or an ISBN and a page or something from the actual citation from the book or article. I especially disliked the "evil American empire" thing. The way you present it it would seem to be an actual citation from the paper's editor or something. Please refrain from inserting personal comments in the article.

In short, please read WP:NPOV and WP:VERIFY.

Friendly, --Michalis Famelis 14:06, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

You know what, your reply was rather polite, so I will "bite" and provide my justifications for the edit, along with relevant quotations. It's up to you whether you will respect the principles of NPOV and verification, which you claimed I had broken.

• Attacks vs murders:

so, then, we agree that

a) Eleftherotypia refused to condemn terrorist attacks until 2001

b) A significant number of these terrorist attacks were murders.

In that case, a+b=>c, c being that Eleftherotypia refused to condemn murders commited by terrorists until 2001. But since this phraseology makes you feel all bothered and uncomfortable, I will try to accommodate you without distorting this truth, and jot it down as "Eleftherotypia abstained from condemning terrorist attacks, including murders, until 2001". Ok?

• Use of word "slaying":

I am willing to concede that slaying is a word with emotional connotations, and replace this, where appropriate, with the more neutral "murder". However, I am not willing to let assasinations be euphemized away by the use of the vague and inaccurate "attack" when used to describe the occurence of masked men gunning down unarmed civilians in the middle of the street.

• Socialist line:

I was referring to the newspaper's policy and slant, not necessarily a "line" dictated by an affiliate political party. In this sense of the word, I would not expect this phraseology to be controversial at all. Take a look at the "Washington Post" entry on Wikipedia, for example. They even have "political position" on a neat little box on the right, where they entered "center-left", despite the fact that Washington Post's politics would be considered rather right-of-centre in most European countries.. I think most readers, Greek and foreign (indeed, most Eleftherotypia journalists themselves) would happily admit to "E" following a "socialist line". I'm not going to insist on this, however.

• Perceived support of terrorists, vocal opposition to antiterrorist laws, antiamericanism and Al Qaeda attacks:

Innumerable Greeks perceive Eleftherotypia to be supportive of terrorists and their causes, amongst which was Manolis Vasilakos, of whose book I quoted as source. I referenced Vasilakos's book specifically because it supports this widespread belief with his own critique of Eleftherotypia, as well as writings and quotes taken directly from the newspaper itself. Didn't Eleftherotypia write, in March 8th 2003, and while the trial of the 17N November's terrorists was still under way that "Bush, Blair and Sharon are murdering in cold blood and yet we [the Greeks] are looking for the terrorists among some poor devils"! Those poor devils of the 17N organization, who murdered over thirty persons and terrorized thousands more! As for the statement about the 9/11 attacks being the result of American crimes, it was made by Fyntanidis on Mega channel TV, hours after the attacks..

But to put an end to this debate, let us take a look at an editorial from Eleftherotypia, published just 2 days after the 11th September attacks.. If the viciousness and hyperbole make you uncomfortable, take it to Eleftherotypia ; don't erase Wikipedia entries! The original was written by Eleftherotypia's G.Trianths, in Greek. The translation to English is mine.

• -----ELEFTHEROTYPIA, 13TH SEPTEMBER 2001-----

Manhattan has bled and been drown in the dust. Demolished like so much small garbage. Derelict besides the flaming Pentagon. Reduced to nothing --which?-- Manhattan! And the Pentagon! The poor of the world must be besides themselves with joy now! One cry should echo to the very skies, "at long last!", "at long last" for this strike in the heart of the beast, the superpower, the tyrrant.

This goes on, with claims that the only terrorists are the "gangsters" Americans, and not the perpetrators of the attacks, and so on, and so on..

Eleftherotypia, 13th of September 2001..

..alternatively, if you can't find the specific issue, look for the "Kala na pathoun" book, pages 80-85 and 261-271.

I am perfectly willing to alter my entry in order to accommodate your sensibilities.

But only to the degree that the latter do not interferre with accuracy and facts.

And something else. Your claim that organizations or individuals who set up bombs in Athens do it for "symbolic reasons" (what, is it some kind of celebration?) is a blatant violation of the NPOV which you appear to hold so dear. So, unless you present us with evidence that you have the telepathic skills necessary to read into those unknown bombers' minds and motivations, I'm striking it out.

Also, not all terrorists call Eleftherotypia in advance "for the surrounding areas to be evacuated". A lot of them have called only after the bombs exploded, and only in order to send their "manifesto" or anonymously "claim responsibility" on account of their organization for the bombings. I am also revising this part of the entry to reflect the fact.

Hello again and thanx for the input. I think we can achieve a "Thesis - Antithesis - Synthesis" schema if we can talk this through.

Let me start by your last comment. As you correctly percieved it, indeed, the "symbolic reasons" phrase is absurd, but take a look at the history page before accusing me for it. In fact I had thought the editor meant that after the attacks the various groups send their communiques to the paper for symbolic reasons, like a "tradition" or something. Obviously the wording decieved me, and the fact that someone else (you) spotted it and edited it out is a clear example of why the Wiki is über-cool.

I have gone through a major rearrangement and rewrite of large parts of the article. I think that many of your last edits to the article have been in a constructive and consensus building direction so I kept much of your stuff in the new version. However, I removed stuff too, so I will comment on some edits of yours that I found problematic:

1. They have been very vocal in condemning any and all antiterrorist laws throughout the Western world as "fascist", while lionizing attacks perpetrated by terrorist organizations (especially when leftist oriented) as "revolutionary". This, I largely removed. The "lionizing attacks" part seems awfully POVish to begin with, and the truth is that they have not condemned "any and all antiterrorist laws as fascist" the finest example being the PASOK counter-terrorism laws. The paper has never called PASOK fascists...
2. About the paper being anti-american, I would hate to bring in this petit article the whole controversy of what constitutes antiamericanism. In fact what the paper does is criticize US foreign policy (politely or not). So that's how I worded it.
3. I have reworded the part about how E is percieved as supportive of terrorism. Rather than analyzing means and ends and weather their condemnation is ostensible or not, I have put it as simply as possible. Simpler is better.
4. The part about terrorist organisations sending stuff to E was duplicated, so I merged the two paragraphs. This made the "who calls them terrorists" part obsolete so I removed it with wikilinks to terrorism articles and the word "such". Again, simpler is better.
5. Oh, and I changed "position" to "alignment". It sounds like better prose don't you think?

Please share any comments, objections etc.

--Michalis Famelis 23:49, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello there. I think the changes you made are sensible and, indeed, improve the neutrality of the article, without removing essential facts. I may have some small objections, esp pertaining to "E"'s criticism of counter-terrorist bills (including those of PASOK) but effectively arguing this might require wading through stacks of old issues, and quite frankly, I'm feeling a bit lazy to do this ;-). You might also be overstating the case a bit for Eleftherotypia's warnings to the police upon receipt of "bomb communiques" (afaict they are required by law to do so, in Greece as well as virtually all countries of the world), but I don't think it's anything worth mulling over. Sorry about mistakenly attributing that quote about "symbolic reasons" to you. I believe we have a markedly improved article compared to what was there a couple of days ago. Porfyrios 16:30, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Nice working with you, too. --Michalis Famelis 16:43, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Reconsideration of NPOV

Maybe we should rethink the whole approach to what the newspaper stands for. Aren't we too harsh on the issues on terrorists and Al Quaeda? Also, Fyntadides (Note the N--we should rename or redirect) is reliable and well-known and not controversial by any means. my 0.02$ (cubic[*]star(Talk(Email))) 20:16, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

And, why, pray ask, should we "reconsider"? These are statements that were published in the newspaper time and again, with all the relevant citations, and I don't see any reason that we should be whitewashing Eleftherotypia (or for that matter of fact, Fyntanides) from their stated positions. I don't know how you're coming to conclusions such as that the entry is somehow "too harsh" by reproducing the paper's published articles and op-eds... How can you possibly be "harsh" against someone when all you do is reproduce their statements without passing criticism? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.196.4.183 (talk • contribs)

Actually, the part I'm not comfortable with is the part that reads: Fytanides has also been criticized for stating on television a few hours after the 9/11 attacks, that the attacks constituted a justifiable reaction to "American crimes throughout the times" A citation has been requested for more than a month now, and none has been given. I propose it be removed, at least until someone can provide a citation, as it is a serious accusation. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 23:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Michalis Famelis on removing the 9/11 citation. Perhaps we can move it to this talk page until someone can source it. As for terrorism, the paper has violated anti-terrorist law in 1992 (?) and the editor was imprisoned for a few days. Recently, the paper was found guilty of violating aspects of the 17N appeals trial. Politis 15:22, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone object to the removal? If so, please discuss it here soon enough! :-) Politis, if you can provide citations of the events you mentioned, please incorporate them in the article. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 16:07, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, it is true that the presentation of the paper is quite off-balance as it is mostly directed towards the terrorism issue. The fact is that the paper is one of the most widely read in Greece, and that there is a lot more to it than the terrorism story. We should present a more balanced version of what makes up Eleftherotypia. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 16:09, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I should make myself more clear. "E" is a serious newspaper and although it published several proclamations we should not portray the paper as an unofficial soundbox of these terrorists (btw there seems to be a consensus between us that these people are terrorists, right?). Some of its journalists may have expressed controversial --so to say-- opinions but should that give a bad name to "E"? Of course, they had some cover from their superiors (Fyntanides notwithstanding) but is it enough to say that "Eleftherotypia is supportive of terrorism" to quote Vasilakis. Disclaimer: I am not realted to the newspaper in any way. (cubic[*]star(Talk(Email))) 19:07, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, 17N and ELA are terrorists and have been found guilty and imprisoned for terrorist activities and the murders they carried out. Also, any group that plants bombs in Greece in pursuit of some 'ideology' is a terrorist group. Politis 12:37, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, 17N, ELA at al are terrorist groups. But apart from certain people who were indeed members (eg Koufontinas or Ksiros) many more have been convicted based on non-evidence or "evidence" provided after torture (by Savvas Ksiros at the Evangelismos hospital) and are unjustly in jail. The 17N trial itself was a mockery of justice. Also, yes any group that plants bombs is terrorist, but I wouldn't be too quick to add quotation marks around the word ideology. And on the other side of things, any state that tortures people, persecutes people unjustly and imprisons people in white cells is also terrorist. Let us call a glass of water, a glass of water. Anyway, I step off the soapbox. We are not here to discuss who is a terrorist and why, but to write an article about a newspaper. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 16:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure about the whole trial being a mockery of justice. Perhaps you are referring to aspects of the trial. Personally, I see no evidence to support this; it seems to me like the people were guilty as charged. However, since I am no legal-eagle, I accept that there might have been some unorthodox initiatives to prove, despite the evidence, that certain people were guilty. But I cannot see where or how. My feeling is that the authorities wanted to pin down 17N, therefore, it would not have been in their interest to fake the evidence because this would have allowed the terrorists to remain free and continue their violence. But 17N no longer exists. My question is, did they catch everybody? I, like many others, think not. I think that some big fish (not the 'marides') in important positions remain free. Politis 10:46, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia pages are encyclopedia pages and not a battleground for arguments. I agree that the article is extremely unbalanced, giving overly weight to the terrorism issue. Removed the argumentation on the terrorism issue, if the writer would like to discuss this issue he can very well do it here.unsigned

What was reported has happened and does not constitute an opinion (the court verdict for the slander of public prosecutor Lambrou is fact), so it is most certainly not a violation of the NPOV. If you think the article concentrates too much on Eleftherotypia's stance with regards to terrorism, you'd be well advised to add other information you find useful, instead of vandalising the entry by deleting facts you don't like.

Fytanides or Fyntanides

I think the correct spelling is Fytanides - from Φυντανίδης.

Whatever it is, please sign your comment. (I would vote for Fyntanides for it retains n). -- (cubic[*]star(Talk(Email))) 21:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Berliner or Tabloid format?

I am no expert on the matter, but isn't Eleftherotypia's format larger than Tabloid? --Michalis Famelis (talk) 13:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Try asking Mr Koufodinas or one of his backers in ... ;-). But seriously, it feels more like a Berliner, certainly not a tabloid format; however, what are the Greek words for these formats (if there are any). Politis 15:41, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Factual error about 17N manifesto

The manifesto after R. Welch assassination was sent to Libération, through Sartre. Not the day after assassination but March 1976. Libération didn't publish it, due to concerns about its validity. It was the second manifesto, the one after Mallios assassination December 14 1976, that Eleftherotypia and Ta Nea published, following its publication by Libération.

The first manifesto sent specifically to Eleftherotypia was the next one titled "Reply to the parties and groups" ("Απάντηση στα κόμματα και τις οργανώσεις") April 1977.

Actually the preface of this manifesto states why Eleftherotypia was chosen. According to 17N, Eleftherotypia a) reported with respect to the facts of the attacks and b) gave voice to the full spectrum of the Left, even if not accepting its causes. Particular mention goes to the case of Rolf Pole (Ρολφ Πόλε). —Preceding unsigned comment added by P.a.a (talk • contribs)

Please go on and correct the article. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 13:28, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Eleftherotypia and terrorism

Eleftherotypia happily published the proclamations and labeled the assassinations, 'executions'. It failed miserably to stand up for the victims or simply epxress their pain (see the Peratikos case). However, when one of its (sports?) reporters was attacked, it was happy to claim, front page, about an 'assassination attempt'. Likewise, it is happy to front page, 'Americangreeks, assassins of the people'. As long as the role of that newspaper(and even that of the broad left in Greece) has not been examined, we may be justified is presuming that, in certain specific areas, Greeks are still living under a junta-like regime with its own (mental) Guantanamo Bays. Overall, of course Greece is a fully democratic nation. Politis 13:36, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Politis, do we really have to go there again? [sigh] In any case, if you want to incorporate this view in the article, go ahead but make sure it is not your own POV (that would be a violation of WP:NOR) and that it is properly cited and attributed to a notable commentator. I would not object to anything of the kind "X said that Eleftherotypia is this and that and did that and this". But please attribute these claims to someone other than yourself. --Michalis Famelis (talk) 13:42, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

No, this stuff is not for the main article. It is totally POV and not necessarily a realistic reflection on the paper. Politis 13:54, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

unfair

There is something wrong written about fyntanidis.He didn't go to ERT after he left eleftherotypia.He now works in Skai Television.I think that the article is very unfair about the newspaper.This newspaper is the more objective left-wing newspaper in Greece. kostas sotiriadis 15 March 2008 (UTC)

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