Marriages, divorces and the publicity tango

First scene: Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni, wearing black sunglasses, arrives in front of the Evelpidon courthouse. “I ask you to respect my privacy. I have two 3-year-old children, I am only here to shake their hands,” she says. Her voice cracks. A few days earlier, she had issued a statement about a crisis in her marriage. She asked for “respect for her privacy.”

Second scene: Stefanos Kasselakis and his partner Tyler Macbeth, in matching outfits, renew their wedding vows in the Botanical Garden of Hania.

The media is doing everything it can to get photos – even with drones – despite the couple’s request that their private moment be respected.

On the day the couple arrived on the island, the camera of an evening show happened to be live on the spot where they were walking. “But how did you find us?” says Kasselakis to the reporter, in a scene that would not have won an acting award.

Not long before, the host of the same show had been the first to visit Kasselakis’ new house in Athens’ upscale Kolonaki neighborhood, giving it a proper tour.

So, what do we want and what are we allowed to know about the private lives of our politicians? When can they legitimately invoke their right to privacy, and where do we draw the line on the role of journalists? Is Greece now also moving toward the American model, where nothing is considered private when it comes to the lives of politicians, not even their medical records?

The era of Dimitra Liani

In Greece, the first politician to see every aspect of his life in the headlines was Andreas Papandreou. “This is the time when private television is booming and TV ratings are important. An open personality himself, his story had everything that made it perfect for the media: from his soft spot for singer Rita Sakellariou, to the days of another kind of weakness, [his second wife] Dimitra Liani, and the weeks in the Onassis and Harefield hospitals,” said Marina Rigou, assistant professor at the University of Athens’ Department of Communication and Media.

It was after his health adventure and the revelation of his affair with Liani that he decided to expose his private moments to the media, with the famous nod to Dimitra as he stepped off the plane on his way back from Harefield.

Today, social media has changed the distinction between public and private. “The distinction between public and private has largely disappeared,” Rigou added. “There is a constant willful exposure of even the most intimate functions of life to digital publicity, an addictive indifference to the display of essentially private moments in the pursuit of either sensationalism and audience or profitability.”

‘The distinction between public and private has largely disappeared. There is a constant willful exposure of even the most intimate functions of life to digital publicity’

The sacrifice of privacy is primarily related to the crisis in politics, with parties failing to fulfill their basic purpose of existence, to convey messages of society, to represent social groups, said Angelos Seriatos, head of political research at pollsters Prorata. “They are currently in such a serious crisis that the image of a leader does not function as an added value but is the dominant element. Due to the fact that the idea of fighting and achieving something collectively has collapsed, people are waiting for a messiah.”

As he explained, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was the one who brought the American model to Greece when he decided to use social media in a targeted way in his campaign, revealing some moments from his personal life and family. “He had to break a profile of being somewhat aloof, socially awkward, while Greece had also gone through a period where the center-right was associated with the elites,” he added.

But it was Stefanos Kasselakis who reversed the terms and brought politics into the private sphere.

For the media, says Seriatos, such personalities or situations have an inherent value. If a person has a different social profile than the usual one, they know he or she will “go viral.” Similarly, Kefalogianni seems to take on a role that does not fit the social stereotype of Greece: She projects the most powerful figure in the house.

“But Kasselakis’ example shows that if all this has no political background, it is not enough. The easy media boom can easily be followed by a collapse.”

Who turns on the spotlight?

When it comes to public figures, there are two ways to expose personal details, says journalist Elli Stai. One is how the media tries to dig up evidence, and the other is how a politician uses it to dig up evidence that he or she believes will raise their political profile.

“It’s not a one-way street, it’s really two roads that meet at some point. We have seen cases – with or without quotation marks – of media blackmail to reveal personal details, but we have also seen cases of politicians using details of their personal lives to evoke feelings of sympathy from citizens/voters.”

However, she said, “it goes without saying that every politician and public figure can set a framework for the disclosure of his or her personal data. The framework can be set and enforced to a very large extent by them personally.” As she added, Kasselakis’ example is quite characteristic of this. In recent weeks, after being ousted from the leadership of the SYRIZA party, he has severely restricted the exposure of his personal life.

Pantelis Vatikiotis, associate professor at Panteion University’s Department of Communication, Media and Culture, said that the privacy of politicians is protected, but not to the same extent as that of citizens.

Of course, he said, “mere curiosity is not enough to legitimize the invasion of someone’s privacy. But when one can intervene is hard to define: Is it limited to when there is an abuse of principles, power, money, or even when there is a contradiction between their public discourse and their actual behavior?”

The other side of the issue, he added, “is how politicians can use the media themselves, as they see fit, and then invoke their right to privacy.”

“It is more difficult to do politics without resorting to the exposure of private life, it does not create strong interest, the visibility comes with much more delay,” Seriatos said.

“There is a relationship between politicians and the media that works like a tango. The media – regardless of their degree of freedom – need material. Politicians give them a piece for the media to give back. Some decide to dance along.”