Whilst I was puzzling over the attitudes of journalists reporting about Greece a German lady from the village of Sfakia called Bettina was having a good rant about something similar on her Facebook page. You won’t see the content unless you are registered on FB so I’ll re-post her English translation of the (German) original:
“I am fed up completely!!!!!
I am fed up that I am asked every day whats the situation in Greece … whats with the xenophobia especially against the germasn ….if its in the meantime dangerous for the Germans to come to Greece for holidays etc… I do not know, that BULLSHIT the newspapers are writing …greek as well as foreign ….but I know now, the biggest anamy are the mass media
And I know and will allways believe, the greek hosbitility is immortal …the Greeks will allways give a worm welcome to all the people who are came with respect towards the country and the greek people….”
2001 riots in England
So it seems that now the press is presenting Greece as a dangerous destination. Actually, it’s no wonder when morons like William Hague (who should know better because he is the British Foreign Secretary) warn Britons in Greece that they should register with British authorities as UK prepares evacuation procedures.
Really?
To where?
A safe neighbourhood in Tottenham? Or would Croydon be more to your taste?
Seriously! This is not Afghanistan or Iraq! It is Greece and is most probably the safest country in Europe. Of course you can encounter criminality and some areas of Athens are deemed to be unsafe but please, name me one large city that is 100% safe night and day.
Well said! Bettina is the best ambassador Sfakia has ever known in recent years and her daily pictorial report is the best advertisement that Sfakia can ever wish to have.
As I said before, press sells only with bad news stories and the reading public has a lot to do with that. Give them horror and fear, tits and bums, and they will love it! (Jean, you can delete the last bit if you think that it will frighten the horses or misguide the young).
Tits and bums are fine Yorgos, this is not an American web site
Well, how about Helsinki, at least 98 %. In general I think cities in the nordic countries are fairly safe.
I thought about Nordic countries when I wrote the post but I have no personal experience with them so I didn’t write it.
Some of the good news stories about Greece that the mainline media tend to put in their back pages, if at all, you can find them here:
http://www.facebook.com/GreeceIsChanging?sk=wall
I have been keeping an eye on this (very new) page and their web site http://www.greeceischanging.com/
Right now I am in two minds about the press campaign that they did a couple of days ago. It is very well designed and positive but it sounds a little like they are begging…just a little bit. What’s your take on this Yorgos?
Certainly it doesn’t have the “hitting back” style of some of the campaigns that we have seen recently from other quarters. They are a group of some of the largest commercial interests in Greece and they cannot be seen to antagonize foreign commercial interests that take a different, and distorted, view of what is happening in Greece. I don’t see them as “begging” but trying to highlight, in a non aggressive way, why all those images of Greece that are being publicized in the foreign press, are wrong. I am certain that they will be having their own “focus groups” to tell them whether their approach is working.
There has been no advice from UK govt to avoid Greece: on the contrary, my local travel agent tells me that his bookings for Greece are seriously up on last year, which itself was a good year for him.
Don’t get too upset by riots in the UK: that was sheer mass criminality badly managed by our defenders of the realm: what I and all other philhellenes ( and I first went to Greece as a student in 1959) want is for Greece to succeed and grow. However if the almost unbelievable austerity that is being imposed does lead to civil unrest , that is eminently understandable. Long Live Greece!