Al Yaum
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatBroadsheet
Owner(s)Dar Al Yaum for Press, Printing and Publishing
PublisherDar Al Yaum for Press, Printing and Publishing
Editor-in-chiefSulaiman Aba Hussain
Founded1965 (1965)
Political alignmentPro-government
LanguageArabic
HeadquartersDammam
OCLC number42316367
WebsiteAl Yaum

Al Yaum (Arabic: اليوم; The Day or Today) is a Dammam-based, supposedly pro-government Arabic daily newspaper published in Dammam, Saudi Arabia.[1][2] The paper has been in circulation since 1965.

History and ownership

Al Yaum was first published in Dammam in 1965.[3][4] Initially, it was a weekly eight-page magazine. Its frequency and size increased over time, becoming a daily newspaper in 1978.[1] The owner and publisher of the paper is Dar Al Yaum Organization for Printing and Publishing.[5][6] The headquarters of Al Yaum is in Dammam.[7][8]

Hamid Ghuyarfi was the editor-in-chief of Al Yaum until 1981 when he was dismissed due to his criticism against the Saudi government.[9] One of the other former editors-in-chief was Othman Al Omeir who is the owner of the liberal Arabic news portal Elaph.[10] Muhammad Abdallah Al Wail also served as the editor-in-chief of the paper.[3]

The daily was the first in the Middle East and the second in the world to get an IFRA ISO certificate, the first in the Middle East to receive the IFRA Asia Award for best in print, and the first in the Middle East to become a WAN-IFRA Star Club member and a Color Quality Club member.[7]

Content and format

Being a native paper of the Eastern Province Al Yaum critically covered negative living conditions of local people in the region before the Qatif uprising in 1979.[11]

The paper mostly covers news in relation to Dammam and nearby regions.[3] It also covers regional news, sports events, and social issues that are of interest to the readers in Saudi Arabia and Arab states of the Persian Gulf.[12] The paper is published in broadsheet format with 28 colour and black and white pages.[4]

Distribution and circulation

Although the paper focuses on the local news and mainly serves the Eastern province,[13] it is distributed across the Persian Gulf region.[12] It is the leading newspaper in the Eastern province.[7][14]

The paper sold 6,000 copies in 1975.[15] The estimated 2003 circulation of Al Yaum was 80,000 copies.[16][17] Its 2007 circulation was 135,000 copies.[5]

Bans and arrests

Although the daily is described as pro-government it has experienced suspensions and arrests of its correspondents. In 1982, one of its reporters was detained for two years.[9] In May of the same year the paper was suspended by the Saudi government due to the fact that its literary supplement became popular among the progressive and leftist young writers who were close to the Communist Party in Saudi Arabia and the Socialist Action Party in the Arabian Peninsula (Hizb alʿamal al-ishtiraki fi al-jazira al-ʿarabiyya).[9][18]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "The press in Saudi Arabia". BBC News. 13 December 2006. Retrieved 30 May 2012.
  2. ↑ "Saudi Arabia. Newspapers and Magazines Online". World Press. Retrieved 30 May 2012.
  3. 1 2 3 "Arab Media Review" (PDF). Anti-Defamation League. July–December 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 January 2012. Retrieved 16 May 2012.
  4. 1 2 Anthony Shoult (2006). Doing Business with Saudi Arabia. GMB Publishing Ltd. p. 277. ISBN 978-1-905050-67-3.
  5. 1 2 "Saudi Arabia. Media Market Description" (PDF). World Association of Newspapers. 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 30 May 2012.
  6. ↑ "Dar Al Youm for Press, Printing and Publication". AME INFO. Archived from the original on 18 September 2013. Retrieved 30 May 2012.
  7. 1 2 3 "Al Yaum in Saudi Arabia books KBA Continent extension". WAN IFRA. 6 May 2013. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  8. ↑ Andrew Leber (2020). "Seek Fact From Texts: Saudi Media on China Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic". Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. 14 (4): 538–553. doi:10.1080/25765949.2020.1841993. S2CID 228820450.
  9. 1 2 3 Said Aburish (2005). The Rise, Corruption and Coming Fall of the House of Saud: With an Updated Preface. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 214. ISBN 978-0-7475-7874-1.
  10. ↑ Sam Morris (17 January 2012). "New Nomination List for 2012 Media Awards". The Next Century Foundation. Archived from the original on 31 May 2012. Retrieved 2 June 2012.
  11. ↑ Toby Craig Jones (May 2006). "Rebellion on the Saudi Periphery: Modernity, Marginalization, and the Shiʿa Uprising of 1979". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 38 (2): 213–233. doi:10.1017/S0020743806412320. JSTOR 3879971. S2CID 143066112.
  12. 1 2 "Al Yaum Newspaper Saudi Arabia". Knowledge View. Archived from the original on 16 July 2012. Retrieved 30 May 2012.
  13. ↑ Naomi Sakr (2003). "Dynamics of GCC press–government relations in the 1990s". In Tom Pierre Najem; Martin Hetherington (eds.). Good Governance in the Middle East Oil Monarchies. New York: Routledge Courzon. p. 114. ISBN 978-1-1383-6213-0.
  14. ↑ "Al-Yaum in Saudi Arabia books KBA Continent extension". Koenig and Bauer Group. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
  15. ↑ Bilal Ahmad Kutty (1997). Saudi Arabia under King Faisal (PDF) (PhD thesis). Aligarh Muslim University. p. 85-86.
  16. ↑ David E. Long (2005). Culture and customs of Saudi Arabia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-3133-2021-7.
  17. ↑ William A. Rugh (2004). Arab Mass Media: Newspapers, Radio, and Television in Arab Politics. Westport, CT; London: Praeger. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-275-98212-6.
  18. ↑ Toby Matthiesen (2020). "The Cold War and the Communist Party of Saudi Arabia, 1975–1991". Journal of Cold War Studies. 22 (3): 35, 46. doi:10.1162/jcws_a_00950. S2CID 221118100.
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