Dear Friends and Colleagues, After nearly 57 years in circulation, the Athens News is under threat of closure. On September 25 it was announced to us by the Lambrakis Press, which has managed this newspaper since it entered the Lambrakis Foundation in 1993, that it will wind up the operation, possibly as early as Friday 3 October. We are currently engaged in an effort to extend that deadline in order to find new investors to take over the title, archive and books. But it is impossible for any serious investor to carry out due diligence and responsibly and formally register their interest to our current owners within a week.
We need an extension of at least a month, in which to make contact with the various potential investors currently reviewing our balance sheet and business plan.
We feel that a move to pull out the rug from under an independent newspaper which has served the thinking public since 1952 should not stand. We are therefore appealing to you, the community we exist to serve, to write an open letter to our publisher, Christos Lambrakis, under copy to us, appealing for an extension and presenting the case, as you see it, for our continued existence under a new owner.
Please send your letters to this email address for publication and forwarding.
The Athens News, Greece's only English-language daily newspaper, was founded in 1952 by Yannis Horn and was published every morning except Mondays. In 1993, the Athens News was acquired by the Lambrakis Foundation, a non-profit research centre specialising in education which thoroughly redesigned and revamped it. Its new layout even won a national design award the first year!
Now, the Athens News has regular sections covering every aspect of Greek news -be it politics, social issues, business, arts & entertainment and sports- as well as international news. Weekly features include analysis of domestic and foreign affairs by leading academics and experts, humour columns and reader contributions. Domestic news is covered by a staff of over 20 full-time journalists and regular contributors. The paper also benefits from its collaboration with the leading Greek daily Ta Nea and respected weekly To Vima. Foreign news sources include Reuters, the Associated Press, the New York Times Service and the Washington Post-Los Angeles Times Service.
In February 1995, the Athens News was chosen to represent Greece at the G7 Information Superhighway Conference in Brussels at a demonstration of new interactive communication technologies, making it the first Greek newspaper to appear on the Internet.
The readers of the Athens News include Greece's English speaking and foreign community which rely on the newspaper to keep abreast of domestic and international events. The Athens News is also considered essential reading by Greek politicians, civil servants and businessmen as well as Greeks abroad.
On March 16th 2001, after 49 years as a daily, the Athens News began to be published as a weekly newspaper. The newspaper is now available at Greek and foreign press newsstands across Greece.
If you would like to sign a petition to help save the paperclick here 28.09.2008
