Ελευθεροτυπία: История закрывшейся греческой газеты

Defunct Greek newspaper

Eleftherotypia (Ελευθεροτυπία) was a daily national newspaper published in Athens, Greece. Published since 21 July 1975, it was the first newspaper to appear after the fall of the Regime of the Colonels, and for most of its period had been one of the two most widely circulated newspapers in the country. Generally taking a center left, socialist stance, it was highly respected for its independence and impartiality. Following the economic downturn in Greece, the newspaper had to file for bankruptcy in 2011. Briefly taken over by a new publisher, lawyer Harris Oikonomopoulos, it was finally shut down in November 2014.

Amidst the Greek financial crisis, Eleftherotypia was hit hard by dwindling revenues. Because of financial problems, Tegopoulos Publishing was unable to pay its employees from August 2011. A loan settlement with Alpha Bank was reached, causing the staff to be sharply cut and the headquarters to be sold. In October, Alpha Bank however withdrew the settlement, requiring the publisher to file for bankruptcy.

On 10 January 2013, Eleftherotypia and its internet site Enet were relaunched after new publisher Harris Oikonomopoulos had acquired 67% of Eleftherotypia's shares from the Tegopoulos family. Under the new publisher, the newspaper, however did not recover. For nine months, the editors continued publishing the daily newspaper without being paid any wages. They proposed turning the newspaper back into a cooperative, but Oikonomopoulos turned them down. In November 2014, the newspaper's operations were finally halted and the editors were locked out from the newspaper's website and social media accounts. BBC News described the closure of Eleftherotypia, which it called "a rare voice of independence and impartiality", as the perhaps most shocking closure of the Greek media landscape.

The newspaper's Sunday edition Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia (Κυριακάτικη Ελευθεροτυπία) hosted select articles from Le Monde Diplomatique. Since 2009, it contained The New York Times International Weekly supplement, featuring a selection of articles from The New York Times translated into Greek. The Saturday and Sunday editions of Eleftherotypia, usually featured articles by a group of journalists, who collectively use the name the "Ios" (Greek "Ιος" meaning "virus"). The Ios were known for targeting and heavily criticizing the Greek far right, the church, the army, the police and United States foreign policy.

Every Wednesday, the newspaper features the "" ("ennea") comics magazine, named after the classification of comics as the "ninth art". 9 enjoys high readership of approximately 200,000 readers weekly. The magazine regularly organizes comics exhibitions and every year holds a competition for new talents and new creators, through which many young Greek comic artists have emerged, such as Helias Kyriazes, Tasos Papaioannou, Argyris Mavreas, Katerina Vamvasaki and Vasilis Lolos. In November 2005, the Court of Appeals in Athens found the publisher Tegopoulos Publishing, as well as editor in chief Serafim Fintanidis and another 2 persons guilty of slandering the Public Prosecutor of the trial of the 17N terrorist group, District Attorney Christos Lambrou. They were fined Euro 60,000 each to be paid to Mr. Lambrou.