Gulf News

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Gulf News is a daily English language newspaper published from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates with a 2006 circulation of over 90,000 readers.^[1]

Stated on their website the newspaper was started on September 30, 1978 by local UAE business man Abdullah Abulhoul, however in actuality the newspaper was started by the prominent Middle Eastern business man Abdulwahab Galadari. Soon after its launch, Gulf News had a subscription base of around 3,000 copies a week and was distributed six days a week.

In November 1984, Gulf News was bought out by 3 prominent U.A.E. businessmen and they formed a firm called Al Nisr Publishing. The business men owned huge business conglomerates and took on the roles of directors in the newly formed Al Nisr Publishing. They were Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, Abdullah Al Rostamani and Juma Al Majid.

Under new ownership, the newspaper was re-launched on 10 December 1985 and was free to the public. From February 1986, a price of one dirham was charged per copy of the newspaper comprising of the broadsheet and a leisure supplement called Tabloid, which also contained classifieds.

Gulf News shifted to a new location in Jan 1986. Besides the U.A.E, the paper is also sparsely distributed to other GCC countries like Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

A new section was started by the paper from December 1988, with a special report section which contained an in-depth analysis of local and international news.

The Asia - Pacific award for best newspaper production was awarded to the paper on 1 July 1990. From December 15, 1990, the paper started a separate tabloid size classified advertisement section called Classifieds.

The new international size of 38 cms was introduced in the broadsheet on November 30, 1995. Gulf News started its web site on 1 September 1996. On May 26, 1997 the parent company of Gulf News became a limited liability company (L.L.C.) having a share capital of DH 15 million.

In April, 2000, the paper again moved to a new head office which contained state of the art technology.

Appointments, essentially a jobs section, was started from June 2001, five days a week.

According to the BPA worldwide audit bureau, Gulf news has a circulation of 91,982 for the week (Saturday to Thursdays) and on Friday it has a circulation of 91,985 copies

Gulf News is a media partner in a number of sporting and cultural events in the UAE.

Al Nisr Group's sister newspaper, free weekly tabloid XPRESS, launched in the UAE on March 15, 2007.

[edit] Role in Orkut Ban

On July 3, 2007, Gulf News revisited the issue of Orkut's "immoral activities" communities, publishing complaints from members of the public against Orkut communities like "Dubai Sex", and officially bringing the complaints to the attention of the state telecom monopoly Etisalat ^[1]. The ensuing moral panic resulted in a renewed ban of the site by Etisalat by July 4, 2007 ^[2].