Politics with an eye on the phone

The country is very vulnerable to gossip, conspiracy theories, our wild political passions, and our creaking institutions. Politicians, instead of governing or seriously preparing to govern, are constantly looking at their cell phones to read the latest snarky comment or gossip.

They often overreact, as if a media report is the end of the world, as if they don't understand that a report rarely brings about the end of the world. Today's media landscape is so mischievously anarchic that traditional media have lost much of their influence.

Once, The New York Times and The Washington Post or - in our country - Christos Lambrakis, Helen Vlachos and the Botsis brothers could set the agenda. Fortunately, that is not the case today. That's the positive side. But there is also a negative one. The agenda can be set and society manipulated by any actor in the anarchic digital...