The Lebanese Arabic-language daily al-Joumhouria announced on Wednesday that it will relaunch its print edition, which it had announced was being suspended on Aug. 2 due to "limited circulation."
"Al-Joumhouria has not stopped and will not stop," former Defense Minister Elias Murr, who relaunched the daily in 2011, said in a statement. He specified that "the newspaper will resume its paper edition in a few days, with a more developed and recent version in terms of content and form." Murr also stated that the daily has "concluded a cooperation agreement with The New York Times (NYT) to enrich the content offered to Lebanese and Arab readers in accordance with an international media level."
Contacted by L'Orient-Le Jour , al-Joumhouria journalist Marlene Wehbeh stated that the daily will once again be distributed in paper form "from Monday, with a new format and more modern and developed content, in line with global technological progress."
Partnerships with international and Gulf media
According to Wehbeh, this relaunch is part of a “broader strategy that includes partnerships with major international and Gulf media outlets aimed at providing rich, objective and independent media content to Lebanese and Arab readers.”
Through the agreement with the NYT, the daily will keep its readers in Lebanon and the Arab world informed of “the most important global events through prominent reporters and renowned political and economic analysts,” the journalist explained. She assured that the daily did not fired any of its journalists and noted that it has continued to publish a digital version of the paper newspaper, in addition to content distributed on the web and social networks.
In early August, when it announced the suspension of its paper newspaper, the daily founded in 1924 by journalist Saji Asmar had mentioned the launch of a "leading Lebanese-Arab digital media platform." The publication was interrupted by the Lebanese civil war in 1975 and was the subject of two unsuccessful attempts to revive it in 1985 and 2005.
Lebanon’s print media landscape has shrunk significantly due to the rise of social media, the economic crisis that began in 2019, and declining advertising revenues. Out of 110 licensed print media outlets, Lebanon now has only eight print dailies — also available online — including just one French-language newspaper, L’Orient-Le Jour. The rest are Arabic-language dailies.
This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.