Black-and-white television
Everything’s fine in the world of ERT at the headquarters of the newly relaunched public broadcaster in Aghia Paraskevi. The people are happy, moved to tears of joy. ERT is here to throw some light on the darkness of the bailout agreements. But it also serves as a sober reminder that the term Greek public broadcaster is pretty much an abusive one. Not because it is not Greek (it is), but because it is not public. In fact, it never has been.
Any brief spells of independence were not intentional, but most probably the symptom of government paralysis. Furthermore, the public character of ERT stops at the license fees that are charged through electricity bills. Otherwise, the government of the day has always had the final say, promoting its own perspective of reality and events. The declared aim, of course, is always the same: “Pluralism and objectivity.”
Looking at ERT’s content (and, by extension, its world-view) is the safest way to interpret the SYRIZA-Independent Greeks coalition’s own view of the world. A lot of criticism has been made over ERT’s performance so far. However, it is interesting to delve deeper into two separate incidents. The first one happened early on Thursday afternoon, when two anchors reacted to the critical statements issued by conservative New Democracy and the centrist To Potami party. The irony and annoyance that was clearly written on the faces of the two journalists as they heard the statements left no question about those much-hyped claims of “objectivity.”
A second incident came in the early hours of Friday. In one of the many ERT-produced documentaries that were aired on the two-year long resistance against the shutdown of the broadcaster by the conservative-led administration, we see the camera following a middle-aged woman who took part in the events. Speaking about the workers’ reaction to the abrupt closure in 2013, the woman makes a distinction between the workers who resisted and the “traitors” who accepted their fate, describing them as “people and little people.”
That distinction, which is in line with the highly polarized mood that has swept Greek society since the beginning of the financial crisis, filled with envy and resentment, was transmitted by the country’s official broadcaster. And what a role-reversal, as the initial victims were now the persecutors.
Greece’s public television is, essentially, still black and white: introvert, isolated, outdated, plagued by ideology.
Should ERT continue in the same mode, it will justify the vulgarity of the 2013 shutdown in the most disheartening manner.
