By Alexis Papachelas

I realized early in my career what a superficial medium television was. I had just done what seemed to me – in my arrogance – an excellent report from the White House and I called a relative to see what she thought of my profound comments about the senior George Bush and former PM Constantine Mitsotakis.

“You said something I didn’t quite understand,” she said. “But, for heaven’s sake, learn to knot your tie.”

I was thinking about that experience recently when I discovered how unfair you can learn to be on television, either through haste or because you’re trying too hard to look smart. When I met one of the new people that PASOK leader George Papandreou had tried to bring in – most of these newcomers were not elected – I was impressed with his mild manner and political culture. Then I recalled that when he was elected to a senior post, I had said “he won’t do well in a television ‘window,’ so he’s not suited to that job.”

Does that mean that the senior Constantine Karamanlis – who would have been nearly impossible to understand in the high-volume, high-pace world of television ‘windows’ – or former PASOK leader Costas Simitis would not have been suitable politicians in this day and age?

We who control what is on private television – some 100 to 200 people – rule out anyone we suspect might not get good ratings. We don’t experiment, we don’t try anything new. We limit ourselves to the same people again and again in the same roles, such as those politicians who appear on comedy shows after midnight in other European countries. They are the ones we know, the ones we sell, the ones we keep seeing in the same places.

This prejudice excludes many capable members of all the parties from TV, precluding any serious discussion about major issues in Greek society.