Friday, June 14, 2013

Yanis Varoufakis — Why am I defending a public broadcaster (ERT) that banned me, and which I always considred problematic?

Last night I spent a few hours, again, at ERT’s main building in Athens, keeping a finger on the ‘liberated’ organisation’s pulse, being interviewed (for the web tv broadcast that is keeping ERT’s voice alive) in tandem with my friend and colleague James Galbraith, listening to the excellent bands performing in the courtyard, soaking up the feeling occasioned by the spontaneous protest against the government’s closure of such a problematic public tv and radio organisation. Many foreign journalists ask me:Why are you defending a station that banned you and which you describe as problematic? Here is part of my answer as I articulated for the purposes of an op-ed piece to be published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung:
Yanis Varoufakis
Why am I defending a public broadcaster (ERT) that banned me, and which I always considred problematic?

However bad, however corrupt, a free press is better than no press. At least it offers a chance where there would be none.

1 comment:

Matt Franko said...

From the comments:

YV: "Happy to post your comment Dean. Naturally I disagree entirely with you. ERT has had a surplus in its budget for a while. It also costs taxpayers very little to achieve it.... "

Of course, it's 'Taxpayer on the hook!'...

Hey YV you dope: Take a look at Mike's video from the Glen Beck channel down thread to figure it out...