A legacy in media: Reflections on my Neos Kosmos journey
Source: NEOS KOSMOS
We often take for granted the very simple and everyday events over the course of our careers. Those moments we thought we were simply passing-through, on our way towards somewhere else.
As we age, these moments in our past seem to grow in significance and meaning. They tend to pull us back to realise that those moments actually helped us discover who we really are. One such moment for me was in 1990 at the age of 16 — walking into the offices of Neos Kosmos for the first time nervous, excited and a little arrogant.
As I reflect back on those days thirty-four years later, I recall vignettes filled with meaning and lessons that I still hold dear. I reminisce about people that mattered greatly to a community in the Diaspora, because they had the courage to explore both our community narrative, and to shape policies of a country that was still grappling with identity, multiculturalism and its ill-treatment of the Indigenous people.
A nervous start: First impressions of Neos Kosmos
On the first day, I was shown around the office, I met people, learned about how the newspaper was made, shaped and archived by a small and dedicated team. I remember moments that would seem odd in the office of 2024, yet perfectly normal and of that time — a rolodex filled with business cards, ashtrays full of cigarette butts smouldering, Greek news-radio playing in the background, exchanges in multiple languages (Cypriot was spoken by a couple of people in the office at the time) and people from the large thriving Greek community constantly running in-and-out of the office, exchanging stories.
As I walked through the office, my tour-guide Alex insisted I see the archive before I was to meet with a couple of the journalists, Sotiris and Kostas, and the publisher of Neos Kosmos, Dimitris Gogos. We explored a dark room in a quiet corner of the office. Large leather-bound volumes were stacked on even larger archival shelves, the gold-foil dates stretched back to the 1950s and a lonely microfiche reader sat quietly in the corner, preparing for its redundancy in the years that followed. With gloved-hands, we carefully flipped through old pages filled with stories of celebration, war and conflict, change of governments, the end of Hellenic royalty, dictatorship and more.
Alex and I were silent — I believe we were slowly realising the same thing. It didn’t matter what I was going to be doing at this newspaper as a young sixteen-year old — working part-time, pasting-up layouts, scribbling cartoons, editing articles and arguing with journalists about their lateness as we worked past midnight to meet deadlines. We had some kind of responsibility to this masthead’s legacy; a masthead that has been so central to our collective identity as Hellenes in the diaspora.
Lessons from the archives: Connecting the past with the present
I would never have realised at the time that thirty-some-years later I would still hold a dear association with this organisation — moving it slowly and purposefully towards its future. That my sixteen-year-old would play a small part in turning that enormous leather-bound archive to a searchable, digital archive, accessible for the entire Greek community in the years to come, was something I could never have imagined at the time.
As I waited patiently outside the publisher’s office, a man whom the Australian media would call ‘one of the most influential and respected voices of Melbourne’s Greek community’ grabbed my arm, my attention and would hold my friendship for many years thereafter. Kostas Nikolopoulos and I waited in the publisher’s office as Dimitri Gogos was on the phone to a politician. Kosta and I chatted about our families, school, our favourite football teams and laughed about the fact that I didn’t know a thing about his beloved soccer team, or soccer in general.
Within minutes of meeting this man, he made a very nervous sixteen-year-old smile and feel at ease. Gogos welcomed me, thanked me for my interest and motivation, and said, “Dimitri mou, welcome to Neos Kosmos. I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to say.”
At 16, I quivered in my seat as time slowed down and a very pregnant pause filled the cigarette-smoke-filled room. Reflecting back on this scene, this statement offered a glimpse into the intelligent, creative and entrepreneurial mind of the founder. Someone who lobbied for the Greek community, fought racism and injustice, and shaped policy on all sides of government.
From teenager to steward: The evolution of a lifelong connection
The smile from Nikolopoulos’s face turned to something more attentive now, the laughter of a few minutes ago merely an echo, as he too waited through that same very pregnant pause that filled the space between us, for my answer. Thirty-four years later this statement inspires me to no end because I have come to realise that as a community, we have something to say. We are connected through our shared experiences, our trials and tribulations and the joys of what we have created to bring our unique perspective to the world.
We have the avenue, access and agency to continually tell stories, report the news with integrity and create an impact for Greek-Australians that sits firmly on the global stage — and in essence, as the late Dimitri Gogos put to the younger version of me many years ago, it’s in our hands to ensure we have something to say.
As I fumbled with an answer I can barely recall today, I remember the feeling of going home that evening, close to midnight. The newspaper that calmly and quietly sat on my father’s lap three times a week, had come to life in a way I could never have imagined — it was in fact, a living and breathing entity. Something made of a people who were and still are, custodians and stewards of culture; holding firm to their identity, their language and their unique Hellenic perspective.
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*Dimitri Antonopoulos is the Managing Director of Research, Strategy and Transformation consultancy Tank, and has held a dedicated partnership with Neos Kosmos for over three decades, helping this masthead remain relevant to a new, emerging readership.
The original article: belongs to NEOS KOSMOS .
