Tales from the Coffee Shop
A HIGHLY entertaining documentary about the witch-hunt orchestrated by the government a year ago against those it falsely claimed had received money from the US in order to support the A-plan was shown on Friday night. The documentary was made by Makarios Drioushiotis and fully exposed the lies and misinformation the government used, with significant help from the television stations, to throw mud at anyone who supported a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum. A booklet has also been published about this sinister campaign, in which the Ethnarch played a leading role and is available in both Greek and English.
The question raised was whether the hacks who engaged in the mud-slinging were following instructions from government (in which case we could talk about a conspiracy) or they had simply got things wrong. As the documentary and 70-page booklet showed, the hacks did not have a shred of evidence to support their claims that the US had given out millions to Greek Cypriots in order to support a settlement. But these insane claims were repeated by politicians, including the Ethnarch, as if they were the truth.
I am inclined to believe that there was no conspiracy. It was just that lazy, incompetent journalists of embarrassingly low intelligence made up the news without bothering to check their facts. The main source of the myths was Mega TV’s Washington correspondent Michalis Ignatiou, which I think proves that there was no conspiracy.
That the government was more than happy to make a big issue out of the nonsense reported by Igantiou is another matter.
BELIEVE IT or not, Ignatiou is one of the candidates for Man magazine’s annual awards. He is one of five proposed by the rag for the award of TV Journalist of 2005. According to the justification, offered by the rag for Ignatiou’s candidacy, “he is known to the wider Greek world as one of the most reliable sources on current affairs from the other side of the Atlantic.” We will vote for him.
Δημοσιεύματα
- Απάντηση στη δήθεν απάντηση του Μιχάλη Ιγνατίου
- Ο Μ. Ιγνατίου απαντά στον Σταύρο Τομπάζο
- A WORD of sympathy for Ignatiou
- Η περιρρέουσα ατμόσφαιρα
- MAKARIOS@SOAPBOX
- Η "αμερικανική επιχείρηση εξαγοράς" του "ναι" - και τα παραλειπόμενά της...
- Πληρωμένη απάντηση
- Η κατασκευασμένη "πραγματικότητα" της Κύπρου
- "Περιρρέουσα ατμόσφαιρα"
- Λούκι Λουκ
- Δημοσιογραφία του ψεύδους
- Εικονική πραγματικότητα
- Οι δημοσιογράφοι στο εδώλιο
- Tales from the Coffee Shop
- FINAL REPORT - CYPRUS BI-COMMUNAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM EVALUATION
Cyprus Mail
13/11/2005