LAST MONTH, the Intercollege Institute of Mass Media Communications inaugurated the Theodoulos Constatinides Journalism Award, named after Cyprus’ first journalist and publisher, on the 160th anniversary of his birth. A bit of a peculiar anniversary, but the award ceremony also featured a presentation of a book about the life and work of Constantinides, who is described as “the father of Cypriot journalism”.
Twenty-two of his children, the youngest of whom was in his late sixties, were honoured with this award, two of them posthumously. The award was given to “veteran Cypriot journalists” for “devoting a large part of their lives to the service of journalism during hard times and under difficult political and economic conditions”.
This is what could be described as a trade union award, as it showed total contempt for excellence, and honoured hacks simply because they had possessed a journalist’s ID card for five decades. It did not matter if some of the honoured hacks had not written a single, decent story in 50 years or that they had spent an entire career brown-nosing whoever was the president and toeing the official line.
And how did Intercollege choose the two hacks it honoured posthumously? Were they related to, or friends of the person who decided the awards, because I can think of at least half a dozen dead hacks more deserving of this ridiculously pathetic award. Returning to living journalistic legends, why was Anthos Lickavgis, our Athens embassy communications director, not honoured? He is old enough. Will he have to wait for the 170th anniversary of the birth of the father of Cyprus journalism before Intercollege honours him?
TWO LIVING hacks, who had told Intercollege that they did not want to be honoured when contacted to be told the good news, were surprised to see their names included in the press release sent out by Intercollege. The Institute does not recognise anyone’s right to turn down its prestigious award, which is given even when the recipient clearly states he does not want it.
Andreas Kannaouros, president of the journalists’ union, was reportedly furious that his name was included against his wishes and planned to complain in writing. Alecos Constantinides, the Alithia columnist, was the other hack whose wish was completely ignored by the Institute, despite flatly refusing the award.
As if the life of a retired hack is not stressful enough, they will now have to live with the fear that they may be honoured against their wishes by Intercollege, a fear they will not be free of even after they’ve died.
AWARD-WINNING veteran journalist Charalambos Charalambides showed off some of the skills for which he was honoured in a book review published in Thursday’s Simerini. Char-Char, who is retired now, had worked as deputy editor of Simerini for many years and still pens the odd article for the paper. His review was of the book written by the paper’s egomaniacal proprietor, Costas Hadjicostis, titled, Strength – the only hope, about which we had written a few weeks ago. Below are two excerpts from the article, which deserved an Intercollege journalism award of its own.
This is what he had to say about the author: “Like the greatest orator of antiquity had foreseen the Macedonian threat coming from the north and, anxiously sounded the alarm for his Athenian fellow citizens, without being heeded, until the Macedonians had control not only of Athens but all of Greece, so too Costas Hadjicostis, for more than 40 years, is repeating the thankless task of Demosthenes.”
As for the book, without a hint of hyperbole, it was Hellenism’s new bible.
“The book must be read with care two and three times by our people, so we can absorb its salvation messages, the naked truths it expresses and its teachings, which are teachings of national salvation, for the whole of Hellenism and in particular its leaders, political, educational, military and religious. The book should become a manual for every politician, teacher and soldier in all the Greek world and not just Cyprus.”
SPEAKING of award-winning journalism, honourable mention goes to the editor of the glossy lifestyle rag must, Ioanna Moiseos, who, in the last issue, wrote an indignant article of more than a 1,000 words about her traumatic experience in TopShop in Nicosia, which had treated her as a mere mortal, an not like the VIP she thought she was.
Ms Moiseos told us how she had gone to TopShop and had seen some clothes from the Kate Moss collection that she had to have, but did not have enough money to buy all three items she desired. The shop refused to put the item aside until she came back with more cash, because there were strict instructions from London not to ‘reserve’ items from the Moss collection.
After getting nowhere with the “Do you know who I am” routine, her confidence in ruins, the editor demanded to speak to the shop manager, and then to the owner, all of whom repeated the instructions from London HQ. The Commerce Minister, who could have helped, was out of the country.
She wrote with bitterness: “London forgot to inform Cyprus about the very important relationship of respect between shops and fashion writers and stylists.”
And she was deeply hurt that she was not shown this respect and given preferential treatment (perhaps a small gift?) after all she had done for TopShop. “I am a fashion journalist at the best read magazine in Cyprus, who has worshipped this shop on countless occasions in my columns…
“I find it incredible and unprofessional that managers and owners of shops would never have read all the things we write about their shop and, worst of all, not know us, not take us seriously and not respect us.”
Had Ms Moiseos been blessed with greater brain power, would she have advertised the fact that there were shop owners who had not heard of the “best-read magazine in Cyprus” and its editor and did not take them seriously?
POOR OLD Emilia Kenvezou seems to be torn between her loyalty to her father’s koumbaros and her desire to be an authoritative TV presenter. Interviewing soon-to-be presidential candidate Ioannis Kasoulides on Tuesday night, she insisted that former Enlargement Commissioner Verheugen had never accused the Ethnarch of cheating him, and said that when the German had said this, he was referring to Clerides government.
She was adamant, even after Kas had said that Verheugen had referred directly to Tassos in a speech on April 21, 2004. Kas released the speech the next day to prove his point, but the government camp remained in denial, insisting Tassos had never made a deal to accept the Annan plan in exchange for EU membership.
The Commissioner had said in his speech: “I have held dozens of talks with ex-President Glafcos Clerides and President Papadopoulos on this basis. There can be no misunderstanding. We had a clear agreement: we would arrange Cyprus’ accession, and they would ensure that no settlement collapsed on account of the Greek Cypriots. I urge President Papadopoulos to fulfill his part of the deal now.” And further down in the speech, he said: “I feel personally cheated by the government of the Republic of Cyprus.”
Verheugen may have been lying about the deal, as the Ethnarch who never lies insists, but how an authoritative hackette like Kenevezou could claim that he never blamed Tassos of cheating him, we do not know. Perhaps she only read the bits of the speech that were reported by the CyBC.
THE WITCH-HUNT against refugees who apply to the illegal compensation committee of the pseudo-state to claim payment for their properties in the north, is gaining momentum. The bash patriotic Zeus Group released a ‘list of shame’ on Wednesday, which contained the initials of 20 refugees who had applied and the level of compensation they were seeking.
The following day, the super-patriotic EUROKO deputy Rikkos Erotokritou announced
that he was drafting a bill by which any refugee who applied to the pseudo-committee would lose their refugee status and all the benefits they enjoy. Rikkos is a bit of a political bully, but he is a smart enough lawyer to know that such a fascistic bill, even if it were approved, would never be enforced.
His idiotic law would only punish refugees, while non-refugees with property in the north could apply to the committee without being penalised. A prison sentence for anyone who applies would be a fairer punishment – and a stronger deterrent – because otherwise non-refugees would be left unpunished.
RIKKOS’ bill might never become a law, but it will serve another purpose, apart from making refugees feel guilty about applying. It would remind everyone of what a hard-core patriot the Limassol deputy is, at a time when his patriotic image was dealt a severe blow by a rebellious member of his family.
I hear that Rikkos junior did not want to do military service and, despite his father’s impassioned pleas, managed to get out of doing it by claiming psychological problems. Good for the kid, but not so good for the father, if he has failed to instill in his own son all the patriotic values that he organises witch-hunts in order to impose on the rest of us. Could the boy’s psychological problems have been caused by listening too often to his dad’s nationalistic sermons?
How about drafting a bill by which any bash-patriot whose son does not do military service would lose his bash-patriot status and all the benefits he enjoys.
TREE-HUGGING, bash-patriotic moraliser Giorgos Perdikis has come up with an alternative form of punishment, at least for women who apply to the compensation committee. He wrote his thoughts about the issue in an article, published in Politis last Wednesday, which started with a short anecdote.
Just after the referendum, Perdikis met in Protaras a thirty-something, London-based Greek Cypriot estate agent who was selling Greek and Turkish Cypriot properties in the north to Brits. The first property she sold was some worthless fields she had inherited from her father, wrote the great, green moralist and added: “She then said, with a smile on her face, ‘If my father ever finds out he will kill me’. I hope the old man found out and beat her black and blue.” (‘tin ekane mavri sto xylo’, is what he wrote)”.
And we thought caring, sensitive environmentalists were opposed to exercising physical violence. If Perdikis saw a man beating his dog, he would immediately report the incident to the police, but if it was a woman who was being beaten up because she had sold her property in the north, he would sit back and applaud.
Instead of giving its list of shame to the Attorney-general, the Zeus group should have handed it over to Perdikis, who would have ensured instant justice – he would have sent round a couple of his heavies to give the applicants a good beating, as long as they were women.
WE WERE overjoyed to see that the megalomaniac ETYK boss Loizos Hadjicostis was given a good beating (metaphorically speaking, because unlike Perdikis we are opposed to physical violence, even against fascistic union tyrants) by the National Bank of Greece. The ETYK head was forced to call off last Monday’s two-hour work stoppage at all banks as well as the strike at NBG.
The reason was that he had lost. The NBG had brought in IT experts who managed to hack into the bank’s computer system without the access codes which had been stolen by the IT staff on Hadjicostis’ instructions. With the computer system up and running, 90 per cent of staff would have ignored the ETYK strike and returned to work on Monday, humiliating the union tyrant.
To avoid the humiliation, Hadjicostis called the Labour Minister Antonis Vassiliou on Sunday to tell him to undertake a mediation proposal, saying he would call off the strike without setting any conditions. Vassiliou, who had never hidden his bias towards ETYK, was happy to play the successful mediator, despite having done nothing to merit it – he had not even been able to get a response from the bank until Monday.
But his mediation has proved a spectacular failure, because the two sides now disagree on how their dispute will be settled. NBG wants legal arbitration, while ETYK wants arbitration by the ministry, whose pro-union bias is well-known. Will Hadjicostis now call another strike? He has ample justification, as the IT department is now being run by staff brought in from Greece without union approval. Surely that calls for a strike, especially as his henchmen who stole the access codes will never work in the IT department again.
AN IDEA of the issues that would dominate the election campaign was given by the Ethnarch’s most loyal supporter, DIKO vice-president Giorgos Colocassides, last Sunday.
He said in an interview: “The removal of Tassos Papadopoulos suits, to a large degree, foreign factors who desire an unhindered re-submission of the Annan plan and its unacceptable arrangements. This underlines the need for the candidacy of Tassos Papadopoulos, who acts as a bulwark against such attempts.”
Prospective rival candidate Commissar Christofias took great offence, believing that this was a remark aimed against him, implying that he would be a pushover for the evil foreigners trying to impose “unacceptable solutions”. The AKEL spokesman said this showed disrespect and reminded Colocassides that “AKEL’s resistance to imperialist plans against the Cyprus Reepublic were well-known.”
I suspect Colocassides has a point. If Tassos stays on as president he would not even have to resist plans for an unacceptable settlement, because nobody would bother to bring one.
WE HAVE no room for the second part of our series about the positive aspects of the Ethnarch’s presidency, so we will run parts 2 and 3 next week.
