top

Alitheia-Αλήθεια - October 5, 1997

A LETTER TO THE "ETHNIKOS KERYX" (National Herald)
ABOUT YELLOW JOURNALISM

Sunday, October 5, 1997

Mr. Editor:

I am writing for the second time in less than two months because of the position taken by your newspaper against the Archbishop.

This time I do not intend to hold back because your editorials as well as the blending of news with commentaries, or the distortive presentation of various interviews and statements has surpassed every degree of partiality, animosity and malice and has lowered the quality of your paper to the level of yellow journalism.

To be honest with you, for a while I had been influenced by articles published by you and "Voithia" regarding the Archbishop. But beyond a certain point, you yourselves through your numerous and clumsy attacks lead me to lose my trust in your credibility. The same holds true for my trust in "Voithia" (have you actually realized that both of you represent two extreme points with regard to the "greekness" or "americanization" of our Archdiocese?)

Your criticism is characterized by vagueness. Besides the incident at the Theological School and the removal of three professors, everything else is vague talk, innuendo and cheap gossip. With respect to the Theological School issue I suspect there is also another side to the story which you do not present. The Archbishop's answers to your completely perfidious questions in his recent interview are very interesting and reveal there are other sides to the subject. Be it as it may, the issue in itself does not call for such terrible attacks, threats and incitement to mutiny within the church if, as you demand, the Archbishop is not replaced. Don't you think you have lost all sense of measure?

Have you considered the damage you are causing to the entire body of the Church? Do you not hesitate before scandalizing so many Christian consciences? In the final analysis I believe you have engaged in such criticism not because you have been carried away by some wrongly directed crusading mania for the benefit of the Church.

To many of your readers it seems you have changed your position on the issues in question all too suddenly and abruptly that they cannot help suspecting the dictates of interests have now changed for you or your aspirations to exert influence on the new Archbishop have not materialized according to your expectations. I had posed the same question in my previous letter to you, but you crossed it out in the version you published. Why? Could it be that I laid a finger on a wound that hurts?

Even if someone would want to be more judgmental of the Archbishop (and I am speaking of constructive criticism and not the type you practice), one is led to support him with all his might when faced with the mania that characterizes your attacks.

A final suggestion: Why don't you fire Mr. Kalmoukos, and replace him with someone more serious and trustworthy? This man licks up what he previously spat out (see how he treated Iakovos, then and now), he spits out what he previously licked up (see how he treated the Patriarch, then and now), and blows his supposedly deep theological hackneyed talk and empty words that, when written by his pen, can only cause nausea. He is not trustworthy, he causes allergic reactions.

If I ever see this letter published in your newspaper (in its entirety, not censored), I will cross myself in surprise.

Without great respect for your person (you had it at one time but you have lost it since),

George Marinidis
M.D. - Nephrologist - Assistant Professor of Medicine
State University of New York at Buffalo
(unfortunately, not a neurosurgeon)

(I regret to have to list titles, but it seems that they do count when it is to your benefit. I wonder if they count when they are not).

[ Translated from Greek ]

[ ALITHEIA-ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ | www.alitheia.org/EP-LT.HTM  -  October 5, 1997 ]