Jose Luis Zapatero

Is the media bringing down the euro?

Has the media exacerbated the eurozone crisis?

Sitting in Athens, that is a question I've asked myself many times in recent months.

Certainly, there are people close to George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, who complain bitterly about the reporting of Greece's economic woes by what they call "the Anglo-Saxon press" (which, in a pantheon of villains, is apparently right up there with greedy speculators and unscrupulous hedge-fund managers).

Their argument goes as follows: parts of the British press have always distrusted the euro and have repeatedly predicted the failure of the single currency. The eurosceptics have waited for this moment, and now they smell blood.