Philippe Ziade
Philippe Ziade (1909 in Ghosta, Mount Lebanon - June 2005) was a prominent journalist who pioneered Lebanese journalism.[1]
Life
He attended the famous 'Ain Warqa school (where Butrus al-Bustani also graduated) founded by his ancestor the Patriarch Joseph Estephan.
He was one of the first news reporters in French-mandated Greater Lebanon.[2] He founded the first national news agency in Lebanon, the 'National News Agency' or NNA (الوكالة الوطنية للانباء) in the 1920s and contributed for more than half a century to more than 30 daily newspapers in the Lebanese press, among them, An-Nahar, Le Jour, L'Orient, Le Soir, Al-Hayat, and As-Siyassah. His office was in the Grand Serail, the current headquarters of the Prime Minister of Lebanon.
Awards
He is the recipient of numerous national medals and decorations including the 1958 Honorary Lebanese Golden Medal of Merit (bestowed by the Lebanese President Camille Chamoun), the 2003 medal of the Lebanese Press Syndicate and the Lebanese Order of Journalists, and upon his death in 2005 the National Order of the Cedar (Officer) (bestowed by the Lebanese President Emile Lahoud).