MINA “News” Agency Misinforms Again…

MINA “NEWS” AGENCY MISINFORMS AGAIN…

It has recently come to our attention that MINA (the “news” agency serving Skopje’s VMRO government line and based in the United Kingdom) yet again published false information about Greece on its website on March 25, 2010; the day of Greek Independence. Taking advantage of the recent anti-Hellenic propaganda published in the German magazines Focus and Bildt, which resurrected the inherently racist views of the 19th Century German traveller and historian Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer, MINA reported this piece of “news”:

http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/13318/46/

Reflecting Fallmerayer’s views, MINA titled its report, “Greek Tourist Guide on Travel Channel: There is no Greek Ethnicity”. MINA reports that the Canadian television channel “The Travel Channel” aired an episode of the cooking program “No Reservations” hosted

by Anthony Bourdain about Greece on March 24, 2010. MINA claims that Mr. Bourdain allegedly asks his tourist guide Byron Ayanoglou (a Greek and Montreal-based restaurant critic whose family originates from Istanbul, back when it was still known as Constantinople) the following questions: “What is really a Greek? Is it an ethnicity? Who are the Greeks?” MINA then further mocks Hellenism and Greeks by stating how yet another mass media channel questions Greeks just like the Germans do.

To continue the propaganda, MINA then states that the Greek tourist guide (Byron Ayanoglou) replies: “It is not an ethnicity. It is a group of mixed people who came to this area“.

The MINA report concludes with the following mockery:

“The Macedonians have been saying this for decades, the Germans just started saying this, and it seems the ‘Greeks’ [in parenthesis] eventually cought [sic] up“.

The particular “No Reservations” full episode can be found online. It was called “The Greek Islands” and it originally aired on January 28, 2008. It re-aired on March 22, 2010 in honour of Greek Independence Day (March 25). We would like to make it known that MINA’s reporting of the events is deliberately altered (e.g. stating that it aired on March 25, 2010) so that the specific episode could not be found and the facts verified. We further regret to inform MINA that they have lied once more. Not only is the episode a glowing review of Greece, and Greek cuisine; it is also an homage to Hellenism and that very Greekness MINA and the bigoted regime in Skopje so love to hate.

The episode can be found split up among the following 5 links (the particular part which MINA references can be found in the beginning of part 4):

PART 1)

PART 2)

PART 3)

PART 4)

PART 5)

Let’s examine in detail what really was said between Anthony Bourdain and Byron Ayanoglou in part 4:

PART 4, 15 seconds:
Byron: “They’re called the Ionian Islands. The Ionians were the original Greeks. That’s where the word Greek in Greece comes from.”

PART 4, 49 seconds (talking about how expansive the known Greek world was in Ancient times, and how vulnerable and beautiful Greek islands were to invaders):
Anthony : “Invasion and outside influence are often good things for food anyway and in the case of Zakynthos, part of the Northern Ionian group of islands, and fatal destination in Homer’s Odyssey, that’s particularly true.”

PART 4, 1 minute:
Anthony : “I‘m confused…Is there such a thing as a real Greek and who are the Greeks anyway, and where did they come from originally?“

PART 4, 1 minute and 6 seconds:
Byron : “The real Greeks are this entire area! The whole - the Hellenic world: The Minoan, the Ionians, the Dorians [and by extension the Macedonians], the different populations from around -“

Anthony: “So wait a minute - so, to be Greek does not refer to any specific ethnicity?-“

Byron (emphatically because Anthony did not understand that all the above mentioned populations were in fact, Greek): “To be Greek was to be part of this land, and to be part of different empires and kingdoms. The idea was that they had a culture and they had the gods, and they had the language, and they conquered the land with their culture - their ideas - with their philosophies.“

One must also examine the concluding PART 5:
PART 5, 12 seconds:
Anthony : “My champion of all things Greek: Passionate, knowledgeable, and patient with my occasional outbreak of cynicism and unpleasantness - Poor Byron! I came to Greece with less than zero expectations. I found the seafood served in pristine condition, the lamb - I mean - couldn’t be fresher - young - the cheese was unbelievable!“

PART 5, 2 minutes and 6 seconds: “But am I glad I came to Greece? Hell, yeah! Have I changed my misconceptions of Greek food? Sure! In few other places does ancient history bear so directly on what’s on the plate! The pride and the stubborness to which the Greeks claim to the best of the Old World points up the best in all of us. An epic history of invasion, occupation, deprivation - a powerful water lust tempered by a fierce need to return home. It’s this uncompromising will, this sometimes incomprehensible strength and obstinancy that years later, does this: an unbroken circle of tradition, family, and food. And like Ulysses, one’s eyes always on the sea.”

So much for MINA’s truthful and unbiased reporting. They picked and chose and altered what really happened changing the character of this show in order to report their predetermined idea of what is a Greek. This racist and bigoted reporting is endemic in MINA and its North American counterpart Maknews.com. Shame on Skopje’s Misinformation International “News” Agency - not a news agency but another internet hate website.

See Also : MINA “News” Agency – a Major Embarassment of Objectivity and Truth in Reporting

By Chris

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