Greek papers left with egg on face over meeting that never was

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The atmosphere between Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan and Greek PM, Kostas Karamanlis was described as tense, somewhat "icy" according to Greek national daily, Vima. On the other hand, the Ethnos newspaper showed pictures of a relaxed Dora Bakogianni, Greece's foreign minister with her Turkish counterpart. The Eleutherotypia newspaper website also spoke of the hour long meeting between the two national leaders saying that a number of issues such as immigration, and disputes over the Aegeon sea were touched upon.

Unfortunately, for all those involved none of this happened. In a gaff which has seen the three major newspapers with egg on their faces the stories all proved to be false as Turkish PM announced his last minute postponement of his trip to Athens  on Saturday evening citing workload difficulties. Despite the fact that the visit never took place the three Greek newspapers all ran stories in their Sunday editions complete with pictures and analysis of the meeting.

The mix up has brought to light major questions over the credibility of the newspaper reporting in Greece where stories are often written days or even weeks in hand and has provided local bloggers another victory in the ongoing, often bitter row between the traditional and new media. Bloggers in Greece have long been accused by newspapers and TV of being careless in their checking of facts and sources and this latest case of such behaviour on the part of the  mainstream media has been eagerly picked up by the country's blogs and Twitter users who have tracked the story's development.

The Athens visit debacle comes during a particularly bad week for the Greek newspaper industry as this week the national daily Eleutheros Typos announced its closure citing economic difficulties.