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Emanuela Karastoyanova

Athens Voice voice or translated the voice of Athens is organizing for the seventh consecutive year already meetings with the inhabitants of the Greek capital. As it befits a free press, meetings are held on the street. Every Thursday, the newspaper appears in certain parts of the city to inform and provide a completely independent perspective on past and upcoming events. To dissect the actual problems and give its ruthless assessment... one which the young people in the city are eagerly anticipating.

Athens Voice has almost become a reference journal for each student. It is also read by adults who are looking for something out of the box. Information in it is alive and the pulse of the city is real. The newspaper criticizes thoughts and writes about the hottest issues of the city, presenting them raw, and unadulterated. But a lot of heart and love is put into it. As the publisher, Fotis Georgele says himself, the people behind the newspaper "live Athens" and are far more than journalists. Here's what he told us:

What is currently the voice of Athens? Is it sad or a is there a touch of optimism? And as the saying goes, is there a message?

When 7 years ago the magazine first appeared, the voice was optimistic. Things in Athens were different. Then we turned to a city that was changing, accepting people from neighboring countries and could play the role of capital of the Mediterranean region. Now it's different. In recent years we noticed a decadence. Things have evolved in other directions not in the one I imagined them to evolve when we started. Athens now has many more problems, the reasons for which are many. One of them is the economic crisis. But what Athens Voice aims is not so much to send messages as to reflect the city. If it has dynamism and vitality, things are also going well, I think it is as you said. Voice of Athens becomes more optimistic. When Athens is gray, struggling against waste, various problems, conflicts on a national basis in its neighborhoods and with the slums in the historical center, the voice is a little bit pessimistic. The concern can be felt. But this is exactly what we are trying to do. To cover the stories. An ideological eye of Athens Voice is the open city. We try not to be bound, to stay away from the national ideologies that exist in each nation. To be able to see the future the viability and the progress of the town and not what is isolated. This is the collision, which each city, each capital and every nation experiences.

Athens Voice is a specific media. With original perspectives, breaks the stereotypes and lets the reader think... Often rebels, and along with this it is especially democratically disposed. It loves the city and its inhabitants... Clearly, the people behind the paper put their heart and soul into it. How do you build such a team and such media?

Well, that was partly by accident. I wanted to create something more than a newspaper, something like body. The people who chose and gathered around me were not only journalists. All of them were active citizens who ded things. Some of them are writers, others are DJs, musicians, artists. Some others are dealing with graffiti, comic books, others write screenplays. Sometimes I even get angry and tell them: "You are mostly something else than journalists. You don’t submit your texts on time..." etc. But this is the magic of the newspaper. You see that all these people live the things and are close with the town.

Is this the recipe for success?

Yes, that's it. Because, you know, people in town know them. One of them for example they know because he writes the lyrics of songs, the other one because he plays the music in the bar... Kraounakis is a composer Triandafilou is one of the greatest writers that Greece has at the moment. Pehlivanidis is an artist, he has exhibitions, deals with a comic book. But of course, they are also journalists. Our newspaper is not built by people who are not journalists. These are double majors, thanks to which it is not as "Ta Nea" for example, where the journalist makes a reportage, creates the news and that's. Later someone might write a comment at most. We, here live things. That’s why the language is different, closer to the reader. The same happens on other levels. Through participation in various civil movements, we reach to an exchange. Now the elections all people were very mixed politically. But not in terms of a party, but as a citizens' initiative. For Athens, for the park for example etc.

Is there something you wanted to accomplish, but you failed?

Yes, there are two things which at the beginning we thought we could achieve in parallel, but they didn’t happen. One was to make the radio station Voice FM. Another thing I imagined, but did not happen was for the example to multiply in other cities. I imagined that with our assistance will appear Voice in Thessaloniki, Larissa, Patras. Even Voice of Sofia! The strange thing was that even some people came from Bulgaria. We had a contact in Thessaloniki with the publishers of Soul magazine. But it is difficult to do these things. You should see them as something more than media more than print. This industry is currently struggling with a decline all over the world. Issuing is not good entrepreneurial decision.

Here work people who are more than journalists, they are in direct contact with life in Athens. At times it seems Athens Voice knows more things than the others...

I don’t know if we know something more. Maybe the fact that we are independent allows us to say much more. It is very different to work in a big media group that has connection with banks and construction companies for example, than in a newspaper that was founded by journalists and it belongs to journalists. This gives you a freedom and independence to say things without being interested in what the other people would think. That’s why it may seem as if we know a lot and say a lot. If we know more, it is only because of what I said earlier. That we go and see things. Very often we create events. The difference is at every level. It is one thing to be in a building in Exarchia like us, and it’s a different thing to be in a glass building in Kifisias where downstairs the boss also has other activities. This is an independent newspaper, free press. One of the five, six largest. We counted the number of readings with Focus Bari and it appeared that it is quite high. We have 340 thousand readers. We also made a web site which has 300-400 thousand visits. We entered the social media, since the summer we have facebook and you can see how the number of our friends increases every week. People love our newspaper. They consider it to be their best. It’s not like the others, which are based on large media groups. In Greece, the intervention of politics in the media is to a very big extent. Big TV media have lost their value. They consider themselves as part of the upper power. While people to this consider Athens Voice to be "their" newspaper. I see this in the way they come to us. They come into our office asking why you wrote I don’t know what... People constantly write me letters.

What are the main challenges that the media and the Athens Voice are struggling with now, in times of crisis?

Athens Voice incomes are from advertising. Advertising, however, faded in Greece. The economic crisis is very severe. The decline, which we are witnessing is very bih. Here we have an additional problem, except for the general crisis in newspapers around the world due to the introduction of electronic media. In Greece, the media are subsidized by the state. They are associated with government management, live on state advertising. And now we have an economic crisis and government spending are constantly cut, the printing industry is struggling with enormous problems. But we have no such problems, because although we are a big newspaper, we have never taken state advertising, as indeed we should. We fight however with the decline in advertising. It is very difficult. But I will endure... if the entire Greece does not go bankrupt.

What do Athenians prefer to read the in times of crisis?

Tips, advice, help on where what they can find a cheaper place to go without spending too much money. This is with regard to the information block. They are interested in where there are events and what kind. Sometimes we give out gifts like tickets for premieres, parties, concerts. We are trying to find sponsors so that the various cultural events to have free entrance. People are interested in this. On the other hand, aside from the information block, they are also interested in how we interpret events. We show them a position in which we say things as they are. Without someone from above telling us what our direction should be. And also say the unpleasant things. Athens Voice is perhaps the only newspaper which does not flatter the general opinion. It does not say what everyone wants to hear. And everyone wants to hear certain things. Lakis Lazopoulos for example said on television: "Our poor people, how much they suffer, what they did to you" etc. He uses clichés as a whole. Here we have many of those. This is our national ideology. Right or left, they all say the same things. Nevertheless, we do not say things that people want to hear. On the contrary. We constantly say: "Do not sympathize us!" We always tell them the bitter truths, and their love for us does not change. They seek the truth. They want them.

Nearest plans for the newspaper?

We are counting the days and months. We say to ourselves: If we go through this year, good! The new 2011 will be very difficult. Let's see how we will manage. Here we are 6, 8 journalists and we can not do traditional business solutions of the type: we have a decrease in turnover, so we will sell 30 percent for example. Things are really very difficult. A journalist's plan is the development of our website. We are trying to continually build upon it and relocate operations there, because we know that whether we want it or not things are going in this direction. I share the opinion that the text written on paper will disappear. The printing industry will remain for some more years, but either way things are shifting towards the screen. That’s why we are trying to develop the site as difficult as it is because of our small budget, and to develop activities that can be richer than those offered by a newspaper. As for example putting the interview we are now doing live on the site. The site also allows us to upload the whole shooting photos in larger sizes.