ABU DHABI, 25 March 2008 — A new national English language newspaper from the UAE capital Abu Dhabi will be launched next month, it was announced here yesterday.
Media and entertainment conglomerate Abu Dhabi Media Company previewed its English-language newspaper — the name of which has not yet been made public — to media buying and advertising agencies ahead of the official launch. During a business presentation hosted by the company’s commercial division and editor in chief Martin Newland, guests were introduced to the editorial philosophy and sections of the newspaper.
Abu Dhabi Media Company, which is created in 2007 as a public joint stock company from the assets of Emirates Media Incorporated, currently owns and operates Abu Dhabi Television, Abu Dhabi Sports Channel, Emirates Television Channel, Abu Dhabi Radio, Emarat FM Radio, Holy Qur’an Radio, Sawt Al-Musiqa, Al-Ittihad newspaper, Zahrat Al-Khaleej magazine, Al Super magazine and Majid magazine as well as other businesses, including United Printing Press.
Newland, a former editor of the UK’s Daily Telegraph and former launch editor of Canada’s National Post, said in a statement that a team of 200 internationally and locally hired journalists will form the UAE’s biggest-ever news gathering operation to put together the country’s first truly quality national and international newspaper.
“We believe the UAE needs a quality, national newspaper with the power to change the reading habits of progressive, discerning readers in the country,” said Newland.
“Focused on the capital, Abu Dhabi, but anchored in the new social and political reality that is the emerging nation within a fast changing global context, the paper will offer fresh, compelling content that’s made in the UAE,” he added.
The new daily, which will have to compete with leading Gulf newspapers, some of them more than three decades old, have already filled more than 100 journalistic posts. The paper has absorbed several journalists from Gulf News, Khaleej Times and other local dailies. It has tapped its business editor from the Wall Street Journal, the review editor from The New Yorker, The Telegraph’s former Paris Bureau Chief Colin Randall and many from other well-known publications, including the Baltimore Sun and Canada’s National Post.
