Estia

Estia (Greek: Ἑστία) is a national newspaper published daily in Athens, Greece. It is generally considered a broadsheet of a conservative, right-wing political alignment, and an advocate of free-market policies. It is named after the goddess Hestia.

Language

In the 1980s and 1990s, Estia was the only daily written in katharevousa, a purist and archaic form of modern Greek that was abolished as the official administrative language in 1976. (Before 1976, the use of katharevousa was favored by the conservative and centrist press, as opposed to dimotiki, which was favored by the leftist press.) In recent years, however, Estia has adopted a conservative form of Standard Modern Greek. Estia is also the only daily employing the polytonic system of accentuation, which was officially abandoned following legislation in 1982; Estia, nevertheless, uses a simplified polytonic orthography in which the grave accent is replaced by the acute.

Format and layout

The paper's very first edition was misprinted, with Page 1 being on the back and Page 2 on the front. Adonis Kyrou I. decided to keep printing the paper the same way, and the tradition continued to 1997, when it was abandoned due to technical difficulties arising from the change from linotype machines to computer-editing.

Estia did not switch to a modern computer system until 1997. At that time Unicode-enabled software had become more widely available and it was possible to continue printing the newspaper in the polytonic system. Until then, the newspaper continued to be set and printed using Linotype machines. Estia is one of the few Greek newspapers printed in broadsheet format. It normally contains only about eight pages a day. There are no pictures on the "front" page, and no colour photographs at all.

The paper's most popular column has always been the feuilleton "Pennies, Eidisoules, Perierga" (Strokes, small news, curiosities), noted for its dry, acerbic wit.

History

In 1876, Pavlos Diomidis founded a weekly publication named Ἑστία, which was a literary magazine similar to the present-day Nea Estia (Νέα Ἑστία) rather than a news-focused paper. Not until 1894 did the well-known poet and journalist Georgios Drosinis transform it into a daily newspaper about politics, culture and finance. In 1941, during the occupation of Greece by the German army, Estia closed, but soon after the liberation it resumed its publication. Estia has been managed by the Kyrou family for more than 120 years. Adonis Kyrou was its publisher from 1898 to 1918, Achilleus A. Kyrou and Kyros A. Kyrou from 1918 to 1950, Kyros A. Kyrou from 1950 to 1974, and Adonis K. Kyrou from 1974 until 1997, when the paper was taken over by Kyrou's nephew Alexis Zaousis.

References

• The Website of the Estia
• Article from To Vima Newspaper about the 1997 Change-over
• Greek Mass Media Presentation
• Press Reference: Greece