{"id":4775,"date":"2026-05-09T15:55:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T12:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=4775"},"modified":"2026-05-09T15:55:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T12:55:00","slug":"pavlos-marinakis-on-fake-news-and-social-media-we-need-citizens-with-critical-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=4775","title":{"rendered":"Pavlos Marinakis on fake news and social media: we need citizens with critical thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

To send a message in favour of critical thinking<\/strong> and responsible reporting, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis, during his address at the Award Ceremony of the 2nd Panhellenic and Pancyprian School Newspaper Competition and Journalism, held at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre.<\/p>\n

Marinakis referred to the importance of children’s involvement with the school newspaper, both for the development of skills and for the formation of character and cooperation. He said that through such activities, the reporters, columnists and analysts of tomorrow can emerge. At the same time, he noted that collaboration between students and teachers creates experiences that will accompany children throughout their lives.<\/p>\n

“There are some obvious ones. The commentators, the columnists, the reporters of the next generation may emerge from these newspapers. It’s not a little bit, it’s very important,” he said.<\/p>\n

He also made special reference to the “Cultivating Critical Readers”<\/strong> programme, which is being piloted in 35 schools in the country and, he said, the aim is to expand it to all schools once funding is secured.<\/p>\n

The government spokesman dwelt at length on the phenomenon of misinformation<\/strong>, calling it one of the biggest crises of the coming years. He stressed that fake news and toxic discourse not only affect political debate or election results, but can even influence personal choices of young people.<\/p>\n

“I used to say as the deputy minister responsible for the press, communication, information, that one of the biggest crises, not one of the biggest problems, one of the biggest crises we are experiencing and will experience with greater intensity is the crisis of misinformation,” he said.<\/p>\n

He stressed that the government has already taken initiatives to curb excessive use of social media, and left open the debate on online anonymity. He made clear, however, that no measure is sufficient without investing in education and the development of arguments and critical thinking.<\/p>\n

“But no matter how many measures you take, no matter how many interventions you make, if you don’t invest in critical thinking, if you don’t invest in argument, you will not achieve anything,” he said.<\/p>\n

In the same context, Marinakis highlighted the importance of print journalism and the responsibility that comes with the signature of a journalist or a publisher. As he said, in newspapers there is the possibility of cross-checking information and clear responsibility for what is published.<\/p>\n

“The battle against misinformation, the crisis of misinformation, is not a battle that the government alone or a part of the political system must fight. It is a battle that the whole of society will have to fight to be able to survive in the years to come,” he said.<\/p>\n

He concluded his speech by sharing a personal story from his student days, revealing that he initially wanted to be a journalist and was actively involved in student newspapers before he eventually turned to law school.<\/p>\n

“My dream, and not when I was very young, just before I went to university, was to become a journalist myself,” he said, stressing that no effort and no experience from such activities is wasted.<\/p>\n

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Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis attempted to send a message in favour of critical thinking and responsible information, during his address…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}