ABSTRACT
Through the eyes of the immigration reporter for Greece's newspaper of record, Kathimerini, this chapter reveals the history of Greek coverage of migration in the last decade, starting with the first large flows of mostly South Asians crossing the river border with Turkey that were met with racial profiling, detentions, and the construction of a fence. By the mid-2010s, Syrians started arriving en masse, and the story went global – with a resulting scrum of activists and journalists that made it even more challenging to dig and probe for deeper truths as even refugees adapted to providing soundbites. Throughout, the chapter emphasizes language – from how it changed to reflect opinion trends with the disappearance of “lathrometanastes” [illegal immigrants, with a far more xenophobic tone] from media discourse to the challenges of finding refugees who could communicate in English or Greek since tight budgets did not allow for hiring translators. The chapter also analyzes essential and evolving journalistic practices, from fact checking to the efforts to keep such a long-duration story “fresh” for readers and editors, such as new storytelling techniques (e.g., 360 VR video and animation) to prevent the audience's, and the journalists’, burnout.
