Workers Solidarity Movement

The images show two examples where the Media in Greece has been caught lying ahead of Sunday's referendum. One of our readers tell us that what the media are saying is "If you vote No, zombies will rise, nuttella will turn bitter, a comet will strike Greece, etc etc etc etc. That's how ALL Greek TV channels are these days! They all make FOX NEWS look like a kindergarden.

A couple of our Greek readers had commented asking us to highlight the outrageous abuse of press freedom going on in the Greek media ahead of Sunday's referendum vote.

On the left a newspaper uses a photo of an old man crying with loaves of bread. Supposedly he is crying because the introduction of bank controls. But actually the picture is from the aftermath of the 1999 earthquake in Turkey, presumably he was crying because he had lost family members.

On the right the scene was supposed to show an elderly women protecting her friends PIN number because of the que behind her at the ATM machine. In fact the picture is cropped from a 2012 photo and in the full photo there is no que.

The same reader in Greece tells us "The journalists ( channels & newspapers ) here in Greece have a give & take with the government. They get some profits from advertisement but most profits come from government funding.

The biggest boss here is Bobolas ( He is the Rupert Murdoch of Greece ) 60% of newspapers & channels are his. The 2 biggest news networks ( mega channel & sky channel ) have a connection even with the IMF ( the IMF had media studies here in greece ! ). The 2 channels Mega & Sky show these past few days the lines in front of the ATMs but they have never shown not even once the beggars or junkies that have multiplied the past 5 years with the austerity measures. This was simply because the government that took the harsh measures was the NEW DEMOCRACY party ( Conservatives ).

Bobolasis is either a friend or relative with the most conservative party members. Sia Kosioni Sky channel news reporter is daughter in law of the former conservative p.m. Mitsotakis.

Yes in Ireland we are used to our media being biased, the spin stories and they frame them in misleading ways. Often they simply fail to cover a story or only cover one side. But it's unusual for them to flat out lie as in the two examples above.

As in Greece most of our media are controlled by either the state or the very rich, and Denis O'Brien in particular. How sure can we be that in a similar situation such media might just lie to protect their bosses interests? During the period after the Jobstown protests and the dawn raids on activists houses the lack of a free press was very visible.

WORDS: Andrew Flood (Follow Andrew on Twitter )