Daily Star (Lebanon)

The Daily Star

Front page of the 12,900th edition of the Daily Star newspaper.
Type	Daily Newspaper
Format	Berliner
Publisher	Salma ElBissar
Editor-in-chief	Nadim Ladki
Associate editor	Hanna Anbar
Founded	1952
Language	English
Headquarters	Beirut, Lebanon
Official website	http://www.dailystar.com.lb http://epaper.dailystar.com.lb

The Daily Star is a pan-Middle East English language newspaper edited in Beirut. It was founded in 1952 by Kamel Mrowa, 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.

History

Upon the death of Mrowa in 1966, his widow Salma Elbissar 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.

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 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) 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 will soon be available in print in the United States.

From January 14th, 2009 until January 31 2009 the website was not updated, and printed issues were not seen. According to 23 January 2009 report by the International Herald-Tribune, the paper was forced to shut down due to a court order over financial troubles. The newspaper resumed publishing the second week of February

Distribution

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 Daily Star considerably reduced in size after temporarily closing in January 2009. It is not distributed with the IHT anymore.

The Daily Star still has a large online readership mainly from North America, Europe, and Australia. In 2009, its website registered more than 80,000 unique visitors per day.

External links

• The Daily Star Homepage
• The Daily Star ePaper