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Last night's edition of "Sniper" show broadcast by Skai TV provoked hundreds of angry comments on social networks. Its host George Trangas, who is well known in Greece, received in the studio four members of Golden Dawn, whom he did not press with hard questions, allowing them to present the actions of the party members and supporters in a very positive way instead.

"Trangas laundered Golden Dawn", wrote the majority of users, looking for ways to respond to this television offensive. Suggestions to boycott the companies advertised by the show were not late in coming.

Trangas himself does not demonstrate that the comments mean anything to him. He would be even less low-spirited bearing in mind the fact that according to the measurements of broadcasts’ rating, 25.3% of viewers watched his show.

However, who actually is George Trangas, who has worked in all media for 30 years already? It is interesting how he has been able to stay in the media for so long: with the help of cries, curses, screams, self-sarcasm, accusations back and forth. Moreover, all this happened on the air. He is just mercantile. He has his audience during every radio or television appearance. Whether fanatics and fanatical opponents prevail, George Trangas is interested in only one thing: to be in front of the cameras and to be paid for this.

The journalist is a kind of a prototype of the bad Greek - he screams, makes rude jokes, he is a "grand fellow," he says he supports the right wing in politics and admits that he is very rich. His name and that of his son, Yiannis, appears on the "Lagarde List" with the names of Greeks with large deposits in the Swiss branch of HSBC. Trangas is the ultimate product of Greece over the last 35 years – a "revolutionary" man with a lot of money.

Commenting on his persona, the Greek website iefimerida writes, "The challenges and fronts George Trangas has opened over the past 30 years are so many that his life could become a book as long as there is a volunteer to write it. The wealth George Trangas has obtained indicates the most successful tactics - both criticism of the system and money in a Swiss bank."

Before the two rounds of last year’s elections, he used all Greek negative adjectives against German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the representatives of the supervisory Troika. In one of his interviews, he was particularly firm against former Prime Ministers George Papandreou and Lucas Papademos and decided to speak about himself only about an hour later.

He described his road, his wild temper, childish naiveté at the beginning, the persecution that followed and then cried. He also cried for his grandson, for his future and expressed his hope that things in Greece would improve. Then, he identified him with the Greek people.

In his daily radio show on Real fm, Trangas often "takes it easy" and uses especially cynical adjectives. The culmination was an epithet, which he used to describe Angela Merkel, for which the National Council for Radio and Television imposed a fine of 25,000 euro on the radio station. The event probably touched him deeply because he cried again.

In an interview for Antenna TV, he expressed regret for the fine and tearfully complained about it and that the Germans called the Greeks lazy. According to sources, he submitted his resignation after the interview, but the radio station did not accept it.

Trangas became known to the general public in an event that took place in a London hospital in 1988, where Prime Minister of the time Andreas Papandreou was under treatment. In his reports, the journalist presented his health condition as much worse than specified in the official hospital bulletin and presented by other media correspondents. He also commented with irony on the relationship between the Prime Minister and the young air hostess at the time, Dimitra Liani, which made the Prime Minister’s associates very angry. His secretary attacked the journalist with slaps and kicks while he was in the hospital and then, went after him, hitting him amidst the gardens in the yard.

Then, Trangas began to actively appear in various media, established several newspapers and as rumour has it, he still owes large amounts of salaries to his former employees. He recently gave an interview for the German tabloid Bild, stating that he had no problem with the Germans but with Angela Merkel. "She behaves like a second Hitler and has the methodology of a dictator. She wants Greece to shrink and Germany to grow," he said.
 
In an advertisement for the latest edition of Crash magazine, George Trangas was dressed in a traditional Greek national costume and raised his Fustanella (male white pleated skirt - author's note) to show his manhood to Angela Merkel, who was on a poster just opposite him. The 63-year-old showman of the Greek television is ready to do everything he can just to give birth to low-circulation publications.

No one is insured against his attacks. At various times, he has indulged in violent attacks against politicians like George Papandreou, Theodoros Pangalos, George Papakonstantinou. Paul Thomsen and Philip Roesler are his recent "victims". In the past, Trangas did not hesitate to start a war against the government of Kostas Karamanlis and especially against his spokesman, Theodoros Roussopoulos.

At the same time, there are reports that "revolutionary" Trangas lives the life of a rich man, goes on holidays in many European countries, and has a Porsche and a villa in the South of France, lodgings in Paris and a house on Mykonos.