As the talks drag on between the government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and Greece’s foreign lenders over politically toxic new austerity measures in exchange for more aid, the news media are filled every day with leaks about possible cuts to salaries and pensions, leading to a state of constant, low-grade panic.

The leader of Golden Dawn last week threatened that his 18 members of Parliament would resign en masse in the vote on austerity measures. The move would probably not jeopardize the foreign aid but would force destabilizing new elections in key areas in which the neo-Nazis would likely gain even more seats.

“What scares me most is that we continue to be suspended in this permanent state of uncertainty, which creates a political vacuum in and of itself,” said Nick Malkoutzis, a journalist and blogger in Athens.

Mr. Samaras recently provoked public outrage when in an interview with a German newspaper he likened Greece today to Weimar Germany, referring to the fragile democratic republic in which fascists and Communists fought for power while the political center eroded before Hitler came to power. “You have both depression and aggression — thefts, crimes of all sorts, have increased very much during the last months,” said Nicos Mouzelis, an emeritus professor of sociology at the London School of Economics, who was recently mugged in an upscale neighborhood here.

Adding to the anxiety, a newspaper recently reported that the government of Prime Minister George Papandreou fired several high-ranking army officers in October 2011 to thwart a coup attempt several weeks before he left office.

Mr. Papandreou’s office denied the claim, and in a country that had a military dictatorship from 1967 until 1974 and where democracy is still young, the unsourced article was widely dismissed as groundless. But to many Greeks, the report deepened an already profound mistrust of the news media, which in Greece are largely in the hands of the political parties and business elite.

Critics warn of a climate of intimidation against journalists. Those who are seen as representing the business elite often need security details to protect them from angry citizens. Investigative reporters for Reuters looking into the Greek banking system said they were followed, Reuters reported.