The National to hit newsstands Thr

NEWSPAPER LAUNCH: The National will go on sale across the UAE on Thursday.

Abu Dhabi's first English language daily will go on sale across the UAE on Thursday, its owner the Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC) said late on Saturday.

The broadsheet newspaper will be called The National and contain 80 pages of news, business, arts and culture, and sport, state-owned ADMC said.

It said an online version of the newspaper would also be available at www.thenational.ae.

"The role of The National is to reflect society, help that society evolve and, perhaps most importantly, promote the bedrock traditions and virtues that must be preserved even in times of change and that is why we have called our paper The National," Editor-in-Chief Martin Newland said in a statement.

ADMC has still to reveal the cover price, although Newland said last month it would not be a "market differentiator". Gulf News charges 3 dirhams (82 cents), while Emirates Business 24/7 and Khaleej Times both charge 2 dirhams.

There will be intense interest in how the newspaper will compare to the Dubai-based English language dailies.

In an interview with ArabianBusiness.com last month Newland said he was not looking to start a newspaper war with the launch of The National.

Newland, former editor of the UK's Daily Telegraph, said there was plenty of room in the market for another paper and he did not think The National would spark a battle for readers and ad revenue.

There will also be a lot of interest in how the newspaper will cover stories sensitive to the government, such as labour strikes.

Newland told ArabianBusiness.com he would not know until the paper launched, but that stories in the public domain needed to be reported.

Newland said he thought there was less and less worry on the part of government about what the UAE media could report, and lots of "grey areas" had developed.

The publication has been on the drawing board for over six months and Newland has been on a massive recruitment drive, hiring some 200 journalists from Britain, South Africa, Australia, the US and Canada.

Print | Email | Discuss this article

| Share |

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM