Alexandra Pascalidou

Alexandra Pascalidou
Alexandra Pascalidou in 2011
Born	(1970-07-17) July 17, 1970 Bucharest, Romania
Occupation	columnist, television hostess and author

Alexandra Pascalidou (Greek: Αλεξάνδρα Πασχαλίδου; born July 17, 1970, Bucharest, Romania) is a Greek-Swedish columnist, television hostess, and author. She is also a frequent lecturer, discussion leader, and human rights activist.

Life and career

Pascalidou became known to the public in 1995 when she started hosting the multicultural television show Mosaik on SVT, one of Sweden's public service channels.

In 2000–01 she hosted Som sagt on SVT, a Saturday night program with a focus on literature and language topics. At the same time, she was the producer and reporter for the television show Striptease that focused on investigative journalism.

In 2004 Pascalidou hosted the Olympics in Athens for SVT, following which she lived in Greece for two years, hosting various television shows including, for example, Friday night entertainment on ERT covering a day spent with such well-known personalities as Roberto Cavalli, Isabel Allende, and Roger Moore, among others. She also hosted a three-hour live Greek morning television program every day. She was the hostess for the Eurovision Song Contest in Greece in 2005, and a commentator in Kiev the year when Greece won the competition for the first time. In the same year Pascalidou hosted Melodifestivalen in Sweden from Gothenburg.

In January 2007 she became one of five hostesses of Sweden's TV4's Förkväll,^[1] a daytime lifestyle program.

She participated in the show Pokermiljonen on TV4 and was hostess for a series of charity galas on SVT, for example, På flykt with Kjell Lönnå and Uppesittarkväll with Anders Lundin.

Pascalidou is a columnist^[2] and freelance writer in newspapers such as GP and Expressen. She has blogged continually on Metrobloggen until the newspaper cancelled all cooperation with her, and she gives lectures on diversity and the media, democracy and justice issues, rhetoric and leadership, gender and cultural competence.

She has also served on the Board of BRIS (Children's rights in society) and the board of Kvinnojouren Terrafem working with women's rights against men's violence. She is involved in women's health and is a member of the 2.6 Miljoner Klubben and a mom's ambassador to RFSUs campaign. She sits on the board of the foundation Läxhjälpen, which helps young people in troubled areas with their homework to help them succeed academically and get access to secondary education.

In the mid-1990s Pascalidou was, along with Michael Alonzo, Dogge Doggelito, and Cissi Elwin, a prominent figure in the Swedish part of Europarådet's anti-racism campaign "All Different All Equal", known in Sweden under the working title "Youth Against Racism”(UMR).

It was announced on 21 January 2016 that Pascalidou would host the semi-final allocation draw for Eurovision 2016, along with Jovan Radomir, in Stockholm, Sweden.^[3]

Plagiarism and ghost writing

Alexandra has been accused several times of plagiarism and using ghost writers. Two instances of plagiarism have been exposed: in 2003 she copied large parts of text written by the journalist Daniel Hernandez for Los Angeles Times,^[4] and in 2015 she was fired from the newspaper Metro after it was revealed that she had translated a Turkish poem by Aziz Nesin.^[5]

Bibliography

• My Big Fat Greek Cookbook (2010) Bonnier fakta ^[6][7]
• Taxi (2008). Interviews with taxi drivers around the world, from Nairobi to New York. Also available in Greek (Psychogios Publications). This book was broadcast on radio P1, P3 and P4, where Alexandra directed Sweden's leading actors including Michael Nyqvist, Samuel Fröler, David Dencik, and Andreas Wilson.
• Front Kick (2003). Stories from Alexandra's inquiries in the areas of racism, terrorism, media, democracy, and so on.
• Cross-Roads: voices from suburban cultures (2002). In-depth interviews with famous Swedish artists who grew up in suburbia. For example, Joakim Thåström, Jerry Williams, Metallica, Dogge, and others.
• Beyond my mom's street (2001). An autobiographical book about growing up in one of Sweden's poorest neighborhoods. The book was hailed by critics and used in schools as tooting literature. The book was translated into Greek by publisher Oceanida.

In popular culture

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). Pascalidou appeared briefly in this film as a Swedish TV reporter covering the protagonist's trial.

References

External links

• Aftonbladet interview with Pascalidou
• Interview with Alexandra about Athens
• Alexandra talks about her new cookbook in TV4
• Board of the foundation Läxhjälpen