In the face of revelations based on fact, published over the past few days as the product of journalistic investigation, the SYRIZA party has responded with a contemptible attack against “Proto Thema”. The political party’s announcement is essentially an indirect admission of the disclosures published by PT, and it shows the embarrassment of the one-time censors of morality and transparency.
Here’s SYRIZA’s announcement on Tuesday:
“Over the past few days the flagship of yellow journalism, Proto Thema, has carried out a campaign of spreading fabricated news and slander against SYRIZA and its cadres. This para-journalism group, as in the past, is continuing the role of the bearer of vested interests, in the service of working against SYRIZA. Citizens, however, have both a memory and judgment.”
Here’s Proto Thema’s response:
Proto Thema is an independent press organization that is judged on a daily basis by its readers, and not, of course, by political parties.
Therefore, instead of insulting us (anyway, they can even do that in order to relieve their stress) Mr. Tsipras and SYRIZA should answer the following questions:
1. Does a mass media outlet have the right to ask a “Leftist Prime Minister” if it is morally and ethically proper, based on his political ideals, to send his children to a private school instead of a public school, with the former costing 16,000 euros annually? Today (Tuesday) in the Sepolia district of central Athens the 145th elementary school closed due to a “lack of proper hygiene”, which means the filth there was considered as dangerous for pupils’ health!
What does Mr. Tsipras say to the parents of these children?
2. Does a mass media outlet have the right to ask the country’s prime minister in whose holiday home and with whose expenses he and his family vacationed all summer long in the Sounion resort district? Additionally, does it have the right to ask on which businessman’s speedboat he cruised around the Aegean?
3. Does a mass media outlet have the right to ask Mr. Tsipras if the former minister of state, Mr. Alekos Flambouraris, is a shareholder in a construction company that was awarded a 3.9-million-euro public sector contract while he (Flambouraris) was a minister? Is this illegal and unconstitutional?
Let Mr. Tsipras answer these questions and allow the readers to judge us, as they have made Proto Thema the biggest circulation newspaper in Greece and protothema.gr the most visited and highest-rated news site in the Greek language.