TO BHMA celebrated its 103rd birthday this February 6. It was first published in far off 1922, just a few months before the Asia Minor Catastrophe.
Almost everything has changed since then. But one issue remains the same: the quality of the news.
A century may have gone by, the world may have changed beyond recognition—and more than once, but the public is just as entitled now to valid, moderate, sober and accurate news as it was then.
It’s no coincidence that every democracy in the world is currently focused, each in its own way, on a right which life has elevated into a requirement. No matter if individual citizens bundle it up with whatever random, unfounded absurdity pops into their head.
Two years ago, Greece suffered a tragic accident at Tempe that cost the lives of many, and in recent days we have been anxiously observing the intense seismic activity on Santorini.
In both cases, however, the news coverage either tried but failed to be valid, moderate, sober and accurate, or didn’t try at all.
In both cases, what the public actually got were exaggerations. speculation, hatchet jobs, baseless hypotheses and unsubstantiated ‘facts’. In short, shoddily formulated theories and garbled ‘explanations’.
To such an extent that no one can say for sure what’s happening or has happened. It’s no distance at all from the ‘alien base’ on Santorini to the ‘American biological warfare base’ in Larissa.
Of course, I won’t be repeating any of that unsavory and, generally, off-the-wall repertoire here. I’ll simply note that when people compete to scare others, to drown out their voices or outdo their hyperbole, there are no winners.
No, there are only losers. There’ll always be someone who shouts louder than the rest, even if they have nothing serious or important to say. And society and democracy will always pay the price for the damage they cause with their nonsense.
It might be time to start over, as To Vima attempted 103 years ago, but I’m not sure.
Still, what is certain now as then is how imperative it is to express the need for “absolute public order, equality and justice in accordance with the Laws and Justice” (editorial in the Elefthero Vima, 6/2/1922).
I would add a fourth imperative—quality in the news—, but I’m not sure everyone is aiming for that.
Because there are many who exploit the information gap and make their living out of that quality’s absence.
