Fra Guardian
Meanwhile one thing working against the No campaign in the Greek referendum is the broad media support for the country accepting the terms on offer from its creditors. John Hooper reports from Athens:
Television is overwhelmingly anti-Syriza. All the big, privately-owned channels – Alpha, ANT1, Mega, Star and Skai – lean towards accepting the lenders’ offer to secure Greece’s position in the euro zone.
The exception is state-owned ERT — unsurprisingly since it was put back on the air by the current government after being shut down as an economy measure in 2013.
There was a pretty easy way this week of telling which way a Greek newspaper leaned in the debate – the alarm quotient in its coverage. “Pensions with tears” screamed the headline on Tuesday’s edition of centre-right Dimokratia over a story about how some beneficiaries had been unable to get their pensions after the imposition of capital controls on Sunday night. Ta Nea, EU-friendly and centre left, had “Payment suspensions throughout business: only cash for transactions.”
But leafing through Avgi, the only major daily close to Syriza, you might think nothing much out of the ordinary was happening in Greecethis week. The only concession to a move that has made headlines around the world was a story on its front page headlined: “Side-effects of capital controls under control.”
With the conservative broadsheet, Kathimerini, centre-right Eleftheros Typos and centre-left Efimerida ton Syntakton also favouring a compromise, the rejectionists are heavily outgunned in the Greece’s lively and extensive press. Even Rizospastis, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), has an ambiguous stance.
KKE’s 15 MPs voted against the referendum, but now it is taking place, the party is recommending a ‘no’ vote. Rizospastis said it was urging voters to download a special ballot paper to “say no to both”.
Updated
Bookies William Hill have cut their odds on a No vote in the Greek referendum from 2/1 to 5/4, and lengthened the odds for a Yes vote from 4/11 to 4/7. ‘All the serious money so far has been for a ‘No’ vote’ said Hill’s spokesman Graham Sharpe.
Hills now offer 7/4 that Greece will leave the Eurozone during 2015, 2/5 that the country will stay in.
