''Athens News'' was an

English-language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

newspaper published in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. The paper had regular sections covering aspects of Greek news such as politics, social issues, business, arts & entertainment and sports, as well as international news. Features included analysis of domestic and foreign affairs by leading academics and experts, humour columns and reader contributions. During the dictatorship, ''Athens News'' was a leading voice against the junta, and its publisher Yannis Horn was jailed and threatened by the dictators.

History

''Athens News'' was founded by Yannis Horn, brother of

Dimitris Horn Dimitris Horn () (9 March 1921 – 16 January 1998) was a Greek theatrical and film actor. Biography Horn was born in Athens in 1921, the son of playwright Pantelis Horn (himself descended from an Austrian father and Greek mother), and Euterpi, ...

, and first appeared on 29 January 1952. It closed down permanently in March 2013, after a long period of economic problems, making it a victim of the Greek crisis. In 1993, ''Athens News'' was redesigned and revamped when it was acquired by the Lambrakis Foundation, a non-profit research centre specialising in education. As such, it formed part of the

Lambrakis Press Group The Lambrakis Press Group S.A. () was a Greek media company. Since 1957, it was controlled by Christos Lambrakis and played a dominant role in Greek publishing and Greek politics, especially through its flagship newspapers, ''To Vima'' and ''Ta ...

. It was the first Greek newspaper to be published on the internet - an online edition appeared in 1995. In 2001, after 49 years as a daily, the ''Athens News'' became a weekly, appearing on Fridays. In October 2008, the paper was acquired by Myenpi Publishing.

History against the dictatorship

In October 1971, Athens News publisher Yannis Horn was arrested and jailed for writing an article against the junta after a visit to Athens by US vice-president Spiro Agnew. The title of the article was "Βόμβες και επιστρατευμένοι μαθητές υποδέχονται τον Άγκνιου" (Bombs and recruited students greet Agnew). In 1973, Horn published an article under the title "Η πολιτική κατάσταση στην Ελλάδα σήμερα" (The political situation in Greece today). The article was written in Chinese. Horn did not speak Chinese, but he copied a random article from a Chinese newspaper that he had seen that day, and he changed his Greek name "Yannis Horn" to its pseudo-Chinese version "Ya – nih orn". He was arrested for the publication of the article, and was told by a junta official that if he were ever to be caught again y the junta officialhe would be converted to soap. Yannis Horn did not know the meaning of the Chinese text that he put on the front cover of his newspaper, so he went to a Chinese restaurant in Athens and asked the owner to translate it for him. The owner, however, was a

Chinese-American Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...

and told Horn that he did not understand Chinese. It was later that Horn found out that the text was not from mainland China, but from a nationalist newspaper published in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

. In April 1973, ''Athens News'', along with ''Bradini'', and ''Thessaloniki'', were the only newspapers in Greece to publish comments by

Konstantinos Karamanlis Konstantinos G. Karamanlis (, ; 8 March 1907 – 23 April 1998) was a Greek statesman who was the four-time Prime Minister of Greece and two-term president of the Third Hellenic Republic. A towering figure of Greek politics, his political caree ...

criticising the dictatoship. The editions of all three newspapers were confiscated by the dictators.

Reception

''Athens News'' has been described as "The main English-language newspaper, available in most resorts, is the Athens News (weekly every Friday, online at ®www.athensnews .gr; €2.50), in colour with good features and Balkan news, plus entertainment and arts listings.". ''Athens News'' has been described as a "historic newspaper", and as "having written its own history n the annalsof the Greek Press".

Rough Guides Rough Guides is a travel company that offers tailor-made trips planned and arranged by local travel experts based in destinations around the world. Originally established as a guidebook publisher in 1982, Rough Guides expanded into customized t ...

writes: "The online edition of the Athens News, Greece's longest-running, quality English-language newspaper with the city's top shows." and "By far the best of the English language newspapers is the four-colour Athens news (daily except Monday online at athensnews.gr). It has been described as "The main English-language newspaper, available in most resorts, is the Athens News (weekly every Friday, online at ®www.athensnews .gr; €2.50), in colour with good features and Balkan news, plus entertainment and arts listings.". Rough guides to Europe describes it as a " Useful and literate English-language daily". while in the book ''Transitions'' it is mentioned that: "Greece and the Mediterranean English-language newspapers such as The Athens News (www.athensnews.gr) and The Portugal News (www.tlie-news.net) may be helpful sources of job vacancies." ''Athens News'' is also cited in academic publications and books.

Journalists and articles

Articles and the journalists who wrote them for ''Athens News'' include: *"The real unsung heroes" by

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

correspondent Nick Michaelian.Nick Michaelian
"The real unsung heroes"
''Athens News'', 16 July 2004. Thousands went to the airport to greet him., page: A04 Article code: C13075A041 via the Internet Archive *"All was not what it seemed in early junta days" by

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

n journalist David Glass.David Glass
"All was not what it seemed in early junta days"
''Athens News'', 30 July 2004, page: A08 Article code: C13077A081 via the Internet archive *"A long, happy summer night 30 years ago" by then ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' correspondent in Athens Mario Modiano.Mario Modiano ('The Times' correspondent in Athens)
"A long, happy summer night 30 years ago"
''Athens News'', 23 July 2004 *"The colonels' coup and the cult of the kitsch" by Diane Shugart.Diane Shugart
"The colonels' coup and the cult of the kitsch"
''Athens News'', 20 April 1997 by Dianne Shugart page: A01 Article code: C11726A014 via the Internet Archive *"Past present" by senior Greek journalist Dimitris Yannopoulos."Past present"
''Athens News'', 2 May 2003 Article by Dimitris Yannopoulos ATHENS NEWS , 02/05/2003, page: A13 Article code: C13012A131 via the Internet archive *"The boy who braved the tanks" by Albert Coerant, Belgian and

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

TV correspondent in Greece during the junta.Albert Coerant
"The boy who braved the tanks" and: ''The ferocious ESA, the military police, excerpted its terror daily''
''Athens News'', 16 November 2001 page: A08 Article code: C12936A081 via the Internet Archive

Editors

* Yannis Horn (1952–1993) * Nikiforos Antonopoulos (1993–1994) * Ramolo Gandolfo (1994–2000) * John Psaropoulos (2000–2009) * Ioanna Papadimitropoulou (2009–present)

Cessation of print and websites

Since November 2012, Athens News has ceased operating, both the print edition and the website. The blog for Athens News was declared defunct on 26 December 2010, but had evidently been defunct since some time in 2009. As of April 2013 the website still existed, but simply displayed a logo for the newspaper (and was apparently otherwise defunct, but not vacant).Cf.

References

External links

''Athens News'' website via the Internet Archive''Athens News'' blog
{{Greek Newspapers Newspapers established in 1952 Defunct English-language newspapers published in Europe 1952 establishments in Greece Newspapers published in Athens Defunct newspapers published in Greece English-language mass media in Greece Weekly newspapers published in Greece Newspapers disestablished in 2013 Greek junta 2013 disestablishments in Greece Defunct weekly newspapers