The Arab world's most storied English-language daily newspaper has suspended publication because of financial woes, the publisher said on Thursday.I was wondering why they haven't updated their website in a week or so...
The Daily Star, which until 2006 was distributed throughout the Middle East alongside the International Herald Tribune, had been in trouble for years. But nobody expected so abrupt a fall for Lebanon's only English-language daily. One morning last week, without any notice, The Daily Star was simply not available on newsstands. It has not been published since then. The website has not been updated either.
The decision to shut down the newspaper was made by a court order following months of financial negotiations with a Lebanese bank over debt amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, the newspaper's publisher and editor in chief, Jamil Mroue said. There were no indications that the sometimes-controversial paper was closed because it broke a taboo or offended a politician, as sometimes occurs in the Middle East.
Mroue said that he had been discussing his financial troubles with the bank for months and was taken aback by the swiftness with which a court ordered the newspaper closed because of its unpaid debts. The newspaper offices were sealed off only an hour after the ruling, he said.
| Most news publications live off generous contributions from wealthy political figures or parties. Others are openly owned by political groups or government agencies, and reflect their benefactors' views. |
The Daily Star's fate is also a symptom of tough business environment for independent newspapers in the Middle East. Most news publications live off generous contributions from wealthy political figures or parties. Others are openly owned by political groups or government agencies, and reflect their benefactors' views. Newspapers like The Daily Star - in which articles and opinion pieces by neoconservatives run side-by-side with those by radical Islamists - struggle to cover expenses by selling ads.
Mroue said Lebanon has suffered through nearly four years of assassinations, political intrigue and wars that hurt the newspaper's revenues. He complained that these factors were not taken into consideration by bank officials judging the company's solvency.
Employees working at the newspaper said that they were shocked when security officials suddenly showed up January 15, the day after the last issue hit the newsstands, and ordered them to leave immediately. They said they were not even allowed to remove their personal laptops. "At a time when the whole world is seeking information on the Middle East, it will be a real shame not to have an English language newspaper out of Lebanon," one reporter said on condition of anonymity.