Cooperative Journalism in Greece

The initiative to establish the « Efimerida ton Syntakton », which in Greek means the newspaper of journalists or the journalists’ journal, essentially commenced in the summer of 2012 by employees of a major Athens daily that ceased publication the previous year.

Discussion and planning by this group of now unemployed people, which included journalists from other media as well, came to a head a few months later in September, when the decision was taken to create a cooperative and publish a daily newspaper with a nationwide circulation that would differ from all the previous papers that had circulated in the country up until that time.

The idea was to publish a newspaper that would not be an appendage of any of the well-known media groups in the country; a publication that would not be dependent, politically or economically, on whatever government held sway at the time or political parties; a paper that would not serve as a « tool » for exercise power by mass media groups or major business concerns.