The Guardian — Two historic Greek newspapers, including the country’s best-selling daily, will cease publication, the debt-ridden Lambrakis Press Group announced on Saturday.
“To Vima weekly and Ta Nea daily are forced to cease their publication within days due to financial reasons,” the company said in a statement.
Lambrakis Press Group (DOL) “is lacking any available resources and as a result it can’t support the printing of its newspapers and, of course, can’t ensure the unhampered operation of the other media outlets it owns,” it added.
Besides the two newspapers DOL owns numerous magazines, news sites and the Vima FM radio.
DOL failed to pay its €99m debt obligations in December, Antonis Karakoussis, director of the Vima newspaper and Vima FM radio said on Wednesday.
He added that this situation was the result of the economic crisis Greece has faced since 2010 which has already led to the closure of many media outlets.
In Saturday’s statement DOL accused the creditor banks of putting the press group in a special management regime without providing for the continuation of its publications.
DOL says the creditor banks are withholding all its earnings “whether these come from newspaper sales or from advertisements”.
Lambrakis Press Group, one of the shareholders of the Mega Channel TV station that is also heavily indebted, has also faced legal turmoil over the past months, with its president, Stavros Psycharis, being prosecuted for tax evasion and money laundering.
With its particularly critical stance against Greece’s leftist prime minister Alexis Tsipras, DOL has been, along with other Greek media moguls, the target of the government’s effort to “reestablish transparency” in what it calls a sector “of oligarchs”.
DOL’s statement added that “the employees, those that have served and are serving the values of free journalism, keep and will keep fighting for the rescue of the Press group, of the historic newspapers and its other publications”.
