Whenever I follow the Greek crisis only from a distance (read: only through major Dutch newspapers), I quickly get the feeling, like many other people, that parts of the story remain substantially underexposed in the mainstream media.
In the past few days I was following the news in the same way again. In the Dutch media the Greek government is increasingly being depicted as a bunch of incapable, or even dangerous politicians, who are unable to negotiate rationally, let alone seem to act in any sensible way. I slowly started to think this might indeed be the case, and that the crisis at this point left the Greek government incapable of acting rational, despite their great stance in the past several months.
However, as soon as I looked deeper into the story again, it seems the European media are in fact creating more and more spin in their reporting. Check for example this interview with Varoufakis from yesterday. For someone who is depicted by mainstream media as a thoroughly incompetent minister of finance, it is remarkable, given the current situation of Greece, how clearheaded he remains. The sharpness with which he answers the (very critical) questions that are fired at him by the reporter is truly admirable in my view:
I think it shows that not so much Greece, but Europe is undergoing a crisis which it does not know how to handle anymore. Perhaps Europe should really start to listen to Greece (and, in fact, many economists supported by international media) more, and start to look into sustainable solutions for the current crisis in Europe.
