Athens News

Athens News was an English-language newspaper published in Greece. The paper had regular sections covering aspects of Greek news such as politics, social issues, business, arts & entertainment and sports, as well as international news. Features included analysis of domestic and foreign affairs by leading academics and experts, humour columns and reader contributions. During the dictatorship, Athens News was a leading voice against the junta, and its publisher Yannis Horn was jailed and threatened by the dictators.

Athens News
TypeWeekly newspaper
FormatTabloid
Owner(s)Myenpi Publishing
EditorIoanna Papadimitropoulou
Founded1952
Ceased publication2012
HeadquartersAthens, Greece
Website

History

Athens News was founded by Yannis Horn, brother of Dimitris Horn, and first appeared on 29 January 1952. It closed down permanently in March 2013, after a long period of economic problems, making it a victim of the Greek crisis.[1]

In 1993, Athens News was redesigned and revamped when it was acquired by the Lambrakis Foundation, a non-profit research centre specialising in education.[2] As such, it formed part of the Lambrakis Press Group.

It was the first Greek newspaper to be published on the internet - an online edition appeared in 1995.

In 2001, after 49 years as a daily, the Athens News became a weekly, appearing on Fridays.

In October 2008, the paper was acquired by Myenpi Publishing.

History against the dictatorship
The 1973 Chinese edition of Athens News mocking the political situation in Greece during the Papadopoulos dictatorship. The editor changed his Greek name "Yannis Horn" to its pseudo-Chinese version "Ya – nih orn", and it is visible on the page.

In October 1971, Athens News publisher Yannis Horn was arrested and jailed for writing an article against the junta after a visit to Athens by US vice-president Spiro Agnew. The title of the article was "Βόμβες και επιστρατευμένοι μαθητές υποδέχονται τον Άγκνιου" (Bombs and recruited students greet Agnew).[3]

In 1973, Horn published an article under the title "Η πολιτική κατάσταση στην Ελλάδα σήμερα" (The political situation in Greece today).[3] The article was written in Chinese.[3] Horn did not speak Chinese, but he copied a random article from a Chinese newspaper that he had seen that day, and he changed his Greek name "Yannis Horn" to its pseudo-Chinese version "Ya – nih orn".[3][4] He was arrested for the publication of the article, and was told by a junta official that if he were ever to be caught again [by the junta official] he would be converted to soap.[3][4] Yannis Horn did not know the meaning of the Chinese text that he put on the front cover of his newspaper, so he went to a Chinese restaurant in Athens and asked the owner to translate it for him. The owner, however, was a Chinese-American and told Horn that he did not understand Chinese. It was later that Horn found out that the text was not from mainland China, but from a nationalist newspaper published in Taiwan.[4]

In April 1973, Athens News, along with Bradini, and Thessaloniki, were the only newspapers in Greece to publish comments by Konstantinos Karamanlis criticising the dictatoship.[3] The editions of all three newspapers were confiscated by the dictators.[3]

Reception

Athens News has been described as "The main English-language newspaper, available in most resorts, is the Athens News (weekly every Friday, online at ®www.athensnews .gr; €2.50), in colour with good features and Balkan news, plus entertainment and arts listings.".[5] Athens News has been described as a "historic newspaper",[6][7][4] and as "having written its own history [in the annals] of the Greek Press".[3]

Rough Guides writes: "The online edition of the Athens News, Greece's longest-running, quality English-language newspaper with the city's top shows." and "By far the best of the English language newspapers is the four-colour Athens news (daily except Monday online at athensnews.gr).[8]

It has been described as "The main English-language newspaper, available in most resorts, is the Athens News (weekly every Friday, online at ®www.athensnews .gr; €2.50), in colour with good features and Balkan news, plus entertainment and arts listings.".[5]

Rough guides to Europe describes it as a " Useful and literate English-language daily".[9] while in the book Transitions it is mentioned that: "Greece and the Mediterranean English-language newspapers such as The Athens News (www.athensnews.gr) and The Portugal News (www.tlie-news.net) may be helpful sources of job vacancies."[10] Athens News is also cited in academic publications and books.[11][12][13][14][15][16][17]

Journalists and articles

Articles and the journalists who wrote them for Athens News include:

  • "The real unsung heroes" by Reuters correspondent Nick Michaelian.[18]
  • "All was not what it seemed in early junta days" by Australian journalist David Glass.[19]
  • "A long, happy summer night 30 years ago" by then The Times correspondent in Athens Mario Modiano.[20]
  • "The colonels' coup and the cult of the kitsch" by Diane Shugart.[21]
  • "Past present" by senior Greek journalist Dimitris Yannopoulos.[22]
  • "The boy who braved the tanks" by Albert Coerant, Belgian and Dutch TV correspondent in Greece during the junta.[23]

Editors
  • Yannis Horn (1952-1993)
  • Nikiforos Antonopoulos (1993-1994)
  • Ramolo Gandolfo (1994-2000)
  • John Psaropoulos (2000-2009)
  • Ioanna Papadimitropoulou (2009-)

Cessation of print and websites

Since November 2012, Athens News has ceased operating, both the print edition and the website.

The blog for Athens News was declared defunct on December 26, 2010, but had evidently been defunct since some time in 2009. As of April, 2013, the website still existed, but simply displayed a logo for the newspaper (and was apparently otherwise defunct, but not vacant).[24]

References
  1. Greece: Athens News closes down after 61 years
  2. "Athens News: About us". Archived from the original on 2009-06-25. Retrieved 2009-08-20.
  3. Κώστας Παπαχλιμίντζος (6 March 2013). "Αυτή ήταν η ιστορία της Athens News".
  4. Κ ΤΣΑΟΥΣΗΣ (24 November 2008). "Σαράντα πέντε κεράκια για το "Athens News"". To Vima.
  5. The Rough Guide: Greek islands. Rough Guides Limited. 2009. p. 162. The main English-language newspaper, available in most resorts, is the Athens News (weekly every Friday, online at ®www.athensnews .gr; €2.50), in colour with good features and Balkan news, plus entertainment and arts listings.
  6. "Λουκέτο στην ιστορική εφημερίδα Athens News". .iefimerida.gr. 5 March 2013.
  7. "Τέλος για την ιστορική εφημερίδα "Athens News"". 5 March 2013.
  8. Greek Islands. Rough Guides. 2002. pp. 41, 67. ISBN 978-1-85828-867-3. Greece on the internet Greece is strongly represented on the internet, with many bilingual English-Greek websites offering ... ©www. athensnews.gr The online edition of the Athens News, Greece's longest-running, quality English-language newspaper with the city's top shows. [...] By far the best of the English language newspapers is the four-colour Athens news (daily except Monday online at athensnews.gr)
  9. Rough Guides (1 November 2002). Rough guide to Europe. Rough Guides. p. 486. ISBN 978-1-85828-914-4.
  10. Transitions Abroad. C. A. Hubbs. 2007. p. 99. Greece and the Mediterranean English-language newspapers such as The Athens News (www.athensnews.gr) and The Portugal News (www.tlie-news.net) may be helpful sources of job vacancies.
  11. Waltraud Kokot (2008). Port Cities as Areas of Transition: Ethnographic Perspectives. Transcript. pp. 168, 163. ISBN 978-3-89942-949-7.
  12. Brewer David (16 April 2012). Greece, the Hidden Centuries: Turkish Rule from the Fall of Constantinople to Greek. I.B.Tauris. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-85773-004-6.
  13. William Michael Murray; Phōtios Michaēl Petsas (1989). Octavian's Campsite Memorial for the Actian War. American Philosophical Society. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-87169-794-3. "Ancient Roman ships to be raised," Athens News, 10 October 1980
  14. I. Grigoriadis (30 October 2012). Instilling Religion in Greek and Turkish Nationalism: A "Sacred Synthesis". Palgrave Macmillan US. p. 204. ISBN 978-1-137-30120-8. Greeks and Turks in War and Peace (Athens:Athens News, 2007)
  15. George E. Demacopoulos; Aristotle Papanikolaou (5 August 2013). Orthodox Constructions of the West. Oxford University Press. p. 333. ISBN 978-0-8232-5210-7. George Gilson Fighting for an authentic faith Athens News
  16. United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Subcommittee on Europe (1971). Greece, Spain, and the Southern NATO Strategy: Hearings, Ninety-second Congress, First Session. U.S. Government Printing Office. Article from Athens News of April 30, 1971, concerning editorial reaction of the junta organ Estia to Under Secretary Irwin's statement to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the State Department was disappointed over the continuing denial of civil liberties in Greece.
  17. Pat Barker (23 August 2007). Elizabeth Knowles (ed.). Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations. OUP Oxford. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-19-920895-1. The Somme is like the Holocaust. It revealed things about mankind that we cannot come to terms with and cannot forget. It can never become the past. on winning the 1995 Booker Prize for her First World War novel The Ghost Road in Athens News 9 November 1995.
  18. Nick Michaelian, "The real unsung heroes", Athens News, 16 July 2004. Thousands went to the airport to greet him., page: A04 Article code: C13075A041 via the Internet Archive
  19. David Glass, "All was not what it seemed in early junta days", Athens News, 30 July 2004, page: A08 Article code: C13077A081 via the Internet archive
  20. Mario Modiano ('The Times' correspondent in Athens), "A long, happy summer night 30 years ago", Athens News, 23 July 2004
  21. Diane Shugart, "The colonels' coup and the cult of the kitsch", Athens News, 20 April 1997 by Dianne Shugart page: A01 Article code: C11726A014 via the Internet Archive
  22. "Past present", Athens News, 2 May 2003 Article by Dimitris Yannopoulos ATHENS NEWS , 02/05/2003, page: A13 Article code: C13012A131 via the Internet archive
  23. Albert Coerant, "The boy who braved the tanks" and: The ferocious ESA, the military police, excerpted its terror daily, Athens News, 16 November 2001 page: A08 Article code: C12936A081 via the Internet Archive
  24. Cf. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2006-04-22. Retrieved 2006-04-22.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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