REPORTS
Political party MeRA25 lodged a complaint against Greek public broadcaster ERT for “zero coverage” of the party on public radio and television
On September 27, 2021, the coordinator of the Central Committee of MeRA25, Costas Bitsanis, sent a letter to the CEO of ERT, Giorgos Gabritsos, complaining about the absence of MeRA25 party members from the political programs of the public broadcaster. The letter was also sent to ESR, the independent authority that supervises the operation of both private and public broadcasting.
The minority opposition party, which is currently represented in Parliament with eight MPs, said that “in the last six months, the coverage of the MeRA25 parliamentary party has been zero on public television.” He also complained that the party leader Yanis Varoufakis “not only was not invited to appear on public television on the occasion of the Public Consultation Party Conference in early June 2021, but we did not receive an answer, even a negative one, in response to the request we submitted to you on this topic.”
The letter detailed the following:
“In the last six months, coverage of the MeRA25 parliamentary party has been zero on public television, with the only exception being the interview of Yanis Varoufakis on 9/7/2021.
We have not heard a word about our MPs and party members appearing on ERT, while the other parties have a daily presence on all shows,throughout the week.
We call on you to immediately address this unacceptable situation so that in the future you can comply with your obligations regarding the promotion of the work and activities of all political parties on public television.”
According to the demands of objectivity and pluralism, ERT, the public service broadcaster, must present the political positions of all parties in proportion to their electoral power, offering television and radio time to the parties and politicians represented in Parliament.
However, in this case, MeRA25 complained that these principles had been violated, since the time that should have been allotted to them was not offered to them, despite the fact that the party is represented in Parliament.
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