Quick Facts
Biography
Andreas Paraschos (born April 1958) is the editor-in-chief of Kathimerini, a daily morning newspaper published in Athens.
Born in Larnaca, Paraschos spent the first years of childhood in a very turbulent period in the history of Cyprus. He spent his primary school years in the Arrenagogeio of Larnaca and then graduated from the American Academy of Larnaca. He believes that the coexistence with Turkish Cypriot students in school for four yearswas a significant and useful experience in his career as a journalist.
After the Academy, from which he graduated in 1978, and two years of military service, he studied international journalism in Moscow. There, until he attained the Master of Arts in international journalism in 1987, he witnessed historic changes since the country moved from its long-lived totalitarian governance of Leonid Brezhnev to a process of inter-party changes in whichYuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko and in the end the Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power. Paraschos feels that observing as part of the community the great changes that had taken place was a study in itself.
He returned to Cyprus in 1987 and started working in the then newly established newspaper “Empros” which was created by journalists that were cut offAKEL and Haravgi (Andreas Kannaouros, Andreas Stylianou and Polydoros Polydoridis). At the same time he worked as a reporter in Cyprus for the municipal radio station of Piraeus “Radio Five” and the London Greek Radio (LGR). He was hired as a Parliamentary journalist in the first private radio station in Cyprus, Radio Super, in 1989. He considered Radio Super to be a major milestone in the journalistic history of Cyprus since it brought new spirit in the exploratory journalism but also to the radio in the island, as well as because it took living and welfare measures resulting in the establishment of “Radiomarathonios for people with special needs.”
In 1990, after the strike at Radio Super, he moved to the Third Programme of Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (RIK) where he worked as a political editor. There he developed another skill, that of a lyricist, and initiated a parallel, personal path in the field of music. He worked with George Dalaras, Antonis Kaloyiannis, Anna Vissi, Alexia, Koulis Theodorou and many others in a series of discs that have as their subject Cyprus. In 1994 he assumed the duties of correspondent of the Greek show of the Australian Radio and Television broadcasting, Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), a position he retains to this day.
In 1995 he left RIK and moved to Phileleftheros where he worked in “Selides”. There he initiated an investigation regarding the persons missing from the Cypriot tragedy revealing among other things that over one hundred victims in the invasion are buried in the cemeteries of Lakatameia and Constantine and Helen in Nicosia. From that point began the process of exhumations and identification through the scientific method of DNA. In 1997 he moved to ΑΝΤ1 TV, where he worked for five months only. He then assumed the position of chief editor of the News Department in the newly set up cable channel ALPHA.
In January 1999 he joined the group that aims to release the newspaper Politis. In 2001, he became chief editor. In 2008 he moved to newly born newspaper "Kathimerini" as a chief editor, a position he retains until today.