The newspaper of the Greek leftist party Syriza has to suspend its daily print edition. The protest is enormous and the financial situation is more than precarious.
The Athenian daily Avgi (Dawn) stops printing Photo: George Schinas/NurPhoto/Picture Alliance
ATHENS The bad news hit the staff on a hot Tuesday afternoon in the third-floor newsrooms of an inconspicuous building on Deligiorgis Street in central Athens. Their outrage was great. The daily print edition of the Athens daily Avgi (Dawn), the historic newspaper of Europe's former flagship left-wing party, Syriza, will cease publication, effective immediately.
“Today, Tuesday 25 June 2024, at 4pm, we were suddenly informed without any consultation that the left-wing daily, which has been published since 1952, will no longer be available on newsstands. This has only happened once before: during the military junta in Athens,” Avgi staff said in a statement issued that evening.
A fictional Avgi headline could have been “Sudden Death,” the staff said. A management spokesperson cited “Syriza’s serious financial problems” as a reason for closing the daily print edition, but provided no financial report or restructuring plans. The staff were simply informed that they wanted to continue employing “as many people as possible.” The title, the avgi.gr website and the Sunday (print) edition should therefore continue to exist.
This did not calm the Avgi staff. He has been on strike since Wednesday because of “this historical and political error and with a deep sense of our history,” as they emphasize. They demand that the decision to close the daily edition be revoked, that all jobs be guaranteed, that outstanding salaries and wages amounting to more than 300,000 euros be paid and that he immediately meet with Syriza leader Stefanos Kasselakis .
Less money from the state treasury
This is likely to prove difficult in the short term. Kasselakis, 36, who was elected party leader by Syriza members in September, has been in the United States since mid-June. He had his permanent residence there until the middle of last year. It is clear to Avgi employees: Kasselakis is behind the closure of the daily print edition.
One thing is certain: without capital injections from Syriza, the party's newspaper cannot survive. According to its latest information, Syriza owns 40 percent of Avgi's shares. The rest is controlled by small shareholders, employees and readers. The problem: Syriza has recently suffered a sudden drop in popularity. Therefore, the left party receives much less money from the state treasury. Many Syriza members simply do not want to pay membership fees.
In addition, the Greek newspaper market is experiencing an unprecedented decline. Since 2018, the total number of newspaper copies sold has almost halved to just 28,203,839 copies for the whole of 2023. That doesn't even amount to three newspaper copies per Greek per year. Moreover, in this country there are traditionally hardly any subscribers. Newspapers are bought at the newsstand – or not.
Syriza parliamentarians doubt
The daily print edition of Avgi, which first appeared on 24 August 1952 as the press organ of the Democratic Left Association (EDA), a party before the Greek military dictatorship and after the end of the junta as the voice of the reformist left in Hellas, at an average price of 1.50 Euro per copy, was recently sold less than 500 times a day nationwide. The advertising revenue? Marginal.
On Friday, employees of the party radio station “Sto Kokkino” (“In Red”) also went on strike. Syriza leader Kasselakis pointed out on Thursday the dramatic financial situation of Syriza and his party’s media. In a text message from the United States, he called on Syriza’s 36 MPs to “make the largest possible financial contribution” to deal with the threatening situation. “Comrades, we ask you to support us, either with donations or by hosting us “to support a country.” Loan to cover the June obligations of the party’s media in the amount of 375,146 euros,” he said. Kasselakis said via text message that he would “set a good example and donate 20,000 euros.”
But Syriza MPs are hesitant. According to Greek media reports, they are now demanding a breakdown of Avgi and the party’s expenses – something Kasselakis has publicly committed to but has yet to deliver. Meanwhile, Syriza’s former finance director Thymios Georgopoulos has warned that Avgi’s staff would remain unpaid from now on. The last daily print edition of Avgi is dated June 22. It was issue 14,990 since the paper was founded.