The Daily Star (Lebanon)

The Daily Star

Front page of The Daily Star newspaper (13 August 2014)
Type Daily newspaper
Format Berliner
Publisher Salma El Bissar
Editor-in-chief Nadim Ladki
Associate editor Hanna Anbar
Founded 1952 (1952)
Language English
Headquarters Beirut, Lebanon
Website Official website

The Daily Star is a pan–Middle East English language newspaper edited in Beirut.

History

The paper was founded in 1952[1][2] by Kamel Mrowa,[3] the publisher of the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, to serve the growing number of expatriates brought by the oil industry. First circulating in Lebanon, and then expanding throughout the region, it not only relayed news about foreign workers' home countries, but also served to keep them informed about the region. By the 1960s it was the leading English language newspaper in the Middle East.

Upon the death of Julien in 1966, his widow Salma El Bissar took over the paper, running it until the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War forced the suspension of publication. With peace hopes running high in the beginning of 1983, the paper restarted production under the guidance of Mrowa's sons, but the intensification of the war again put the paper under pressure. The flight of the intelligentsia from the country depleted the paper's staff and its readership. Still, it continued as a daily until mid 1985 and then as a weekly for another year, before ceasing publication once again. One of daily's early editors was Jihad Khazen.[4]

With the arrival of peace in 1991, and the development of a rebuilding program three years later, the paper again looked to publish. With Kamel's first son Jamil Mroue as leader, printing was recommenced in 1996 with modern presses, experienced foreign journalists, and an energetic Lebanese staff.

In 2004, The Daily Star merged its Lebanon and regional editions choosing to focus on Lebanese expatriates in the Persian Gulf region. Now, the unified edition appears in all countries except for Kuwait which has its own local edition published in partnership with Al-Watan, a Kuwaiti Arabic language daily.

In 2006, the newspaper announced that its paper would soon be available in print in the United States.

For two weeks (14 January to 31 January 2009), the printing of the paper was suspended by a Lebanese court order after financial difficulties.[3][5] The website was not updated either.[5] The newspaper resumed publishing the second week of February 2009 with certain agreements with creditors about payment of accumulating debt.

Distribution and circulation

The Daily Star signed an exclusive marketing representation, printing and distribution agreement with the International Herald Tribune in 2000. Under the terms of the agreement, The Daily Star represented the IHT in the GCC, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen and Iraq. The Daily Star also produced a local edition in Kuwait.

Under this agreement, The Daily Star was published and distributed alongside the International Herald Tribune's Middle-East edition. The Daily Star management however decided to break the agreement over a dispute regarding the newspaper's length, which the IHT management wanted to see reduced.

The paper considerably reduced in size after temporarily closing in January 2009. It is no longer distributed with the IHT.

The Daily Star still has a large online readership mainly from Lebanon, the United States, Canada, European Union, and Australia. In 2009, its website registered more than 80,000 unique visitors per day. The 2011 circulation of the paper was 29,940 copies.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Anis Moussalem. "The Great Stages of the Lebanese Press". Opus Libani. Retrieved 26 September 2013.
  2. 1 2 Paul Doyle (1 March 2012). Lebanon. Bradt Travel Guides. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-84162-370-2.
  3. 1 2 "Lebanon’s Daily Star shut down". Asharq Alawsat. Beirut. AP. 23 January 2009. Retrieved 31 July 2014.
  4. ↑ Alterman, Jon B. (1998). "New Media New Politics?" (PDF). The Washington Institute. 48. Retrieved 7 April 2013.
  5. 1 2 "Lebanon newspaper banned over legal dispute". Gulf News. 22 January 2009. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
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