One warm summer evening in 2015, many thousands of ordinary people chanted a slogan that was once mainly found on the walls of Exarchia: "Liars-snitches-journalists." It was an unprecedented event of great massiveness, and the anger was mainly directed towards private television stations. About two and a half years later, a global survey in 38 countries showed that Greeks had the least trust in the media that informed them. It concerned all media. The big problem is not limited to the operation of the media or their economic parameters, but concerns the information of citizens and democracy itself.

Through 20+1 central—and dozens of smaller—stories of sensationalism, the book attempts to provide answers for the extremely negative performance of Greek media. We encounter them in the vile public shaming of HIV-positive women. In a television show that baselessly labeled a father as the rapist of his underage daughter, leading him to suicide. In reports about events that never happened. In channels that announced the arrest of a "terrorist" who was not even a suspect. In the powerful newspaper that called a well-known composer a "worm-ridden scumbag." The war reports broadcast from a peaceful area. In fourteen unsuspecting citizens who read in a newspaper that they were terrorists. In the corpses on the front pages. In journalists who blackmailed for a few euros. Others who dipped their hands into secret funds. Some others who promoted homophobia and racism and a few more who sold false hopes to cancer patients. In the "televised rapes" repeatedly. In the anxiety of channel owners to support their political choices by any means. In the citizen who for 29 whole years has been trying to erase the stigma of "terrorist," with which a newspaper labeled him.

Ignacio Ramone, historical director of Le Monde diplomatique, has described the products of journalism of our time as "contaminated information." Through the "20+1 stories of sensationalism," Giannis Pantelakis justifies this term.