In Greece, Journalists Occupy the ERT Studios and Keep Producing News—Despite Austerity Measures

Last Tuesday, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras announced that Hellenic Radio and Television (ERT)—Greece’s only public television and radio station, and national equivalent to the BBC—would be shut down, taking with it more than 2,600 public sector jobs and, though the ERT was far from free and uncensored, one of the last semblances of democracy in Greece. Although it seemed too extreme to be true, at 11 PM on Tuesday night, the broadcast went dark and 2,650 journalists, technicians, and artists were out of a job.

However, this was far from the end of the ERT—hours before the blackout, crowds began assembling outside the studios to protest the cuts. All public sector workers announced a 24 hour strike, and broadcast workers announced an indefinite strike—instead largely opting to stand with the crowd of now tens of thousands outside of the ERT studios.

Upon seeing the enormous crowds outside, instead of going home the journalists occupied the studio and kept producing news—only this time with no oversight or censorship from the government.

As the government shut down cables and antennas across the country, one by one—sometimes with riot police literally snipping the radio transmitters—ERT technicians began rerouting the signals through alternate routes. When the Internet was cut in the main broadcast room, other technicians began frantically installing a private ADSL line so that they could livestream the program over the Internet in an ad-hoc web-TV channel. By the morning, the European Broadcast Union (EBU) had come to the support of the ERT and set up a satellite and its own channel on satellite television. The signal is shaky—but the broadcast continues.

However, though the story of the occupation of the ERT studios is hopeful and empowering, the present—and future—that they symbolize for Greece is bleak. The ERT cuts are part of a grand scheme to cut 15,000 public sector jobs by 2014—a requirement for the Greek New Democracy government to keep receiving loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Although many were skeptical as to whether or not the government could physically do this—with the extreme austerity measures it has already imposed—this enormous cut is a sign of the Samaras government proving that it is on track to meet these targets, no matter what the costs to the people.

As is, the current overall unemployment rate is 27 percent and the youth unemployment is a terrifying 62.5 percent.

Over the past two years, the Greek government has dramatically cut the public sector, laying off thousands and completely eradicating dozens of programs. Social security, education and healthcare programs—among many others—were significantly slashed, leaving only the barest minimum—often with little to no salary.

Additionally, the cuts manifest themselves in devastating ways. Malaria returned, because of a lack of government-funded programs to control mosquitoes. HIV infection rates rose by more than 200 percent because government needle exchange programs ran out of clean syringes for heroin addicts—which have increased drastically since the crisis began.

Many Greeks who have the means to leave are doing so, as any lingering hopes for opportunities in their home country are rapidly dwindling. When the crisis first hit, many recent college-graduates left Greece to pursue foreign job opportunities or higher education abroad, creating a “brain drain” on Greek society. However, now that the crisis has only worsened beyond what anyone could have previously imagined, many older Greeks are relocating and leaving their families behind to work menial jobs elsewhere in the European Union—desperate to make money again.

However, still others are forced to stay—some, clinging to the job that they still have, while others, simply lacking the means to move abroad are forced to endure the desperation that has become life in modern-day Greece. Although Athens used to be a lovely, ancient city on the Mediterranean, it has since depreciated into Europe’s ghetto with graffiti scrawled on the sides of the buildings and unabashed desperation in plain sight on every street corner. Meanwhile, the tourism on which much of the Greek economy relies continues to be stagnant.

Perhaps the closing of the ERT radio and television stations symbolizes the drastic changes that have overcome Greece the best—both the social effects of the cuts and the shift in governance from the ancient cradle of democracy to the rise of neo-fascist totalitarianism. ERT radio has been on the air since 1938—and, as BBC reports, though it remained live during the German occupation and the military junta it was silenced last night. What does this say for the future of Greece?