Heavily censored and wary: reporting during the coup

Curfews, sporadic gun violence in the streets, media censorship, chaos and confusion: these were the conditions under which journalists had to operate in the immediate aftermath of the coup of July 15, 1974. Two veterans of the business cast their mind back to those heady days and tell the Cyprus Mail how they tried to do their job in an environment fraught with danger.

On July 15 president Archbishop Makarios was deposed by a military coup led by Greek officers of the National Guard. Greece’s military junta installed politician Nicos Sampson as a figurehead president. Sampson’s appointment was an on-the-spot decision to avoid a power vacuum after three others, including Glafcos Clerides, had refused the position. Just a week later, Sampson was forced to resign.

On July 20 Turkish forces landed in the north of the island, the invasion was underway. On July 23, the same day Sampson quit, Clerides was sworn in as interim or acting president.

Following the breakdown of peace talks, Turkish forces enlarged their original beachhead in August 1974 resulting in the capture of approximately 36 per cent of the island. A ceasefire was declared on August 18.

Panayiotis Papademetri, now aged 80, was a journalist with the O Agon (The Struggle) newspaper based in Nicosia when the coupists grabbed power and tried – unsuccessfully – to assassinate Makarios.

“I remember the sirens, then we heard that Makarios is dead, then the curfews came,” he recounts.

It all began around 8am on that Monday. Per standard operating procedure, the new regime quickly gained control of the centres of power and mass communications.

By Thursday, July 18 some of the constraints on movement had been lifted.

“They [the coupists] put us journalists on a bus and gave us a tour of Nicosia, showing us whatever they wanted. They took us for example to the archbishopric, and showed us the damage from gunfire there.”

On the same day, July 18, Sampson held his first press conference. During a chaotic session, as described in a report by the New York Times at the time, Sampson branded Makarios “a traitor” and maintained that Turkey had no reason to interfere in developments on the island because they were “an internal Cypriot affair”.

In all this, Papademetri and his journalistic colleagues were not only trying to make sense of the situation but also report the news.

“A government censor was appointed, he was a journalist,” recalls Papademetri.

“This fellow was installed at the Press and Information Office (PIO). So around 7pm or 8pm I’d take our pages to him to the PIO, he’d cross out and ‘correct’ what he wanted, and give me back the copy cleared for publication.”

Despite this, the control was not absolute.

“The thing is,” says Papademetri, “after correcting our copy the censor did not demand to again see the final version before it went to print. Who knows…maybe they got a bit lazy, maybe it was too much workload for them to handle.”

The censorship extended to terminology. For example, in its draft copy the paper wrote “His Excellency, the president of Cyprus, Makarios”. The censor crossed that out with his pen and changed it to “Ex-president Makarios”.

The same experience is attested to by the Cyprus Mail, whose first issue after the coup did not come out until July 20. The Cyprus Mail also had the title for Makarios changed by the hawkeyed government censor.

In that issue, the Cyprus Mail also wanted to print a paragraph quoting the BBC that a Turkish flotilla had left southern Turkey. The entire paragraph was deleted.

As for Papademetri’s newspaper, it had managed to get an issue out a day earlier, on July 19. It was their first edition since the coup, and covered Sampson’s statements.

Memories are hazy, but Papademetris thinks they published two editions in the days after the coup. In fact during that week they worked until midnight, striving to cram in the latest news.

It was not the same for all papers. Phileleftheros and Haravghi did not circulate at all from July 15 to 20. It was only in early August that they got back to business as usual. The publications were not forcibly shuttered during this time, but rather decided on their own to suspend work.

As for ‘Machi’ newspaper – which belonged to Sampson – it came out with an issue on July 19.

“It was dangerous to be outdoors at night. There were armed thugs around, you had to be wary,” says Papademetri.

Meantime the CyBC, the state broadcaster, had been overrun by the new regime from the outset. A firefight had taken place outside the premises between police officers and military affiliated to the coupists. Once victorious, the latter marched in and took over. They soon installed a military administrator at the CyBC who also played the role of censor-in-chief.

“This guy was a colonel. He basically ran the show at the CyBC,” explains Papademetri.

News editors there had to adapt fast, they had little choice after all. They’d prepare the text for the nightly news bulletin, and take it to the military administrator who made corrections as he saw fit.

The CyBC never closed throughout the coup. Besides television, on radio it would from time to time release announcements dictated by the new regime. In between these announcements, listeners were treated to the sounds of military music.

On July 23 Clerides took over as acting head of state, and the political transition got underway, the coupists installed at the CyBC started keeping a lower profile, and eventually they left the premises altogether.

But due to the outbreak of hostilities on July 20, most male journalists of fighting age had to go do war.

“Maybe we published one edition between the first and second phases of the invasion,” Papademetri says.

Access to information, let alone reliable information, was hard: “Everyone was glued to the radio and television, but obviously we knew we couldn’t trust the CyBC as it became a mouthpiece for the coupists.

“Our sources of information were foreign news media, which we got from telex transmissions or radio broadcasts by the BBC and Deutsche Welle.”

Andreas Hadjipapas was employed as a reporter at the CyBC at the time, and can testify first-hand to the conditions there.

“To be honest, I was home when the coup broke out on the morning of July 15. I used to work the night shift at CyBC. But that morning I got hold of a teletype and managed to send out a few words to United Press, a news agency based in Athens.

“I wrote that shots had been heard near the presidential palace, and that there were rumours of a coup. Then the lines were cut.”

Hadjipapas, former publisher of the Cyprus Weekly, had in his youth done a stint at the Cyprus Mail before transitioning to the CyBC.

He too attended Sampson’s famous – or infamous – press conference.

Asked about the CyBC’s in-house censor, that colonel, Hadjipapas remembers him well.

“He was a Greek national…and inside the CyBC he was armed with an automatic. He’d carry it around with him.”

Soon after Clerides became president, he paid a visit to the state broadcaster and spoke with staff there.

“When Clerides came, the Greek colonel was right there too, still holding his gun,” Hadjipapas tells us. “I’ll never forget that.”

The veteran journalist remembers that shortly after the Clerides visit, things started to ease off at the CyBC.

But he adds: “There was still some leftover fear.”