QUOTE
Opinion
The Adults Are Back in Charge of Greece. And They Are Really Right-Wing.
The return of order is proving to be the return of the right.
By Matthaios Tsimitakis
Mr. Tsimitakis is a Greek journalist.
UNQUOTE
An article under the above heading appeared in the New York Times of 5 August 2019. The Social Media, immediately “caught fire”, but much more ponderous was the immediate hard reaction of no less a personality than Simon Nixon of The Times, who pointed out to the American Newspaper that Mr. Mattheos Tsimitakis is not simply a “Greek journalist”, but until a month ago, a prominent media staffer of ex Prime Minister Tsipras at the Government’s service and pay for 5 years and it was a shame not to inform their public and publish this critical information together with the “opinion” article.
At the same time, quite a lot of twits appeared, sharply criticising the American newspaper for its serious slip to publish in its Opinion Column the article before a rudimentary research as to who was the author, which would have saved all the disgraceful incident.
Twitters mainly focused on the fact that Mr. Tsimitakis had every right to express his ideas and criticism of the new Greek government, but New York Times’ readers had an even greater right to be informed of his past, so that they could see that his views were biased and influenced by his close connection with the former SYRIZA government.
The sentence: «A previous version of this article failed to identify fully the author’s work history. He worked in the press office for the previous prime minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras» printed by the New York Times in reparation could be dismissed as “too little, too late.”
LIBERAL.GR points out that Mr. Tsimitakis took a post responsible for new media close to Mr. Tsipras at the Maximou Mansion, when he was Prime Minister. His article in the NYT is interpreted as an attempt to tarnish Kyriakos Mitsotakis profile, associating him right extremism, in the first days of his Government. This does not fit anywhere near Kyriakos. Simon Nixon promptly called it a “laughable idea”. In fact, the first month of his Government in power, proves the opposite: He has put together a Government with many more important figures of the centre than Tsipras ever managed to attract.
By Maximos 7/8/2019