More than 876 accredited journalists from 45 countries, of whom 497 have come from abroad, will be covering the Greek parliamentary elections on Sunday, the General Secretariat for Communications and Promotion said at the opening of the 2015 Elections Press Center in central Athens, Greece, on Saturday.
The Press Center, to be housed in the Zappion building that also served as headquarters of Greece’s EU presidency, will remain open between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Saturday and from 9 a.m. on Sunday until the results are in and the election process is fully completed, in order to facilitate members of the Greek and foreign media covering the Greek elections.
An announcement from the General Secretariat for Communication and Promotion said that the press center is fully equipped to meet the needs of media representatives and to keep them fully up to date on the progress of the election process.
The press center will also have a press conference room that will be made available after the completion of the elections to any political party leaders that wish to make statements to the media, with simultaneous translation into English.
General Secretary Georgios Karagiannis said that Greece had found itself at the center of international interest in recent years, as a result of the crisis and its “systematic efforts to stand on its feet again,” and that the foreign media had shown an especially keen interest in the entire 2015 election campaign, culminating on Sunday.
He noted that the number of accredited journalists and correspondents for these elections was 35 percent higher than in 2012, and that 100 television channels throughout the world will be covering the Greek elections from the Zappion building. “Clearly, global interest is heightened in relation to the elections in 2012,” he added.
Karagiannis said that everything at the Press Center was prepared to work without a hitch on Sunday and he appeared confident that both Greek and foreign journalists would find their needs catered in the best possible way, ensuring that Greece’s image “was worthy of the country that gave birth to democracy.”
Providing comparative figures for the current elections and those in 2012, the General Secretariat said the number of accredited journalists had increased to 876 from 649 in 2012, the number of foreign journalists to 497 from 298, the foreign press correspondents to 148 from 100, the number of countries to 45 from 44 and the number of television channels had reached 100 from 66. The number of Greek journalists, by contrast, had fallen to 231 from 251, the number of news agencies had dropped slightly from 31 to 27, radio stations also dropped from 31 to 27 and the number of newspapers had decreased by one to 84.
(source: ana-mpa)
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