Flirting with death to bring a paper out

Press, 6 September 1989, Page 10

Flirting with death to bring a paper out

NZPA-Reuter Beirut Behind a blast wall of concrete blocks and windows piled high with sandbags, the staff of “l’Orient-le Jour” wage a daily battle to bring out a newspaper amid the mayhem of Beirut "They flirt with death every day just to reach the office,” said the editor-in-chief, Issa Goraieb. “They work when shells are outside and stay till early in the morning. They are wonderful.” A former editor-in-chief was killed by a sniper, several staff have been wounded and 10 briefly kidnapped during Lebanon’s 14-year civil war. Mr Goraieb was abducted twice. The French-language paper’s main headache at present is not security or the peculiar problems of publishing in a divided city, but the collapse of the Lebanese pound. ' “We are losing a lot of money,” Mr Goraieb told Reuters at his offices in Ashrafiyeh in Christian east Beirut. “We are the only papef in the world which

would like to sell less so we lose less.” With every copy costing 117 pounds (37c) to produce but fetching just 70 pounds (23c) wholesale, the board decided three months ago to do just that.

Proceeds from sales and what little advertising revenue remains are in pounds but ‘TOrient-le Jour” must pay its printers in Muslim west Beirut in US dollars. i “It is a situation killing the whole Lebanese press," Mr Goraieb said. Many of Lebanon’s newspapers, around 15 in all, face the same hazards as “l’Orient-le Jour.” They defy the odds every day to keep printing. Many of them, Mr Goraieb said, accept subsidies from overseas or various Lebanese factions. “With our sister paper ‘An-Nahar,’ we take pride in being the only real independent newspaper.” That independence has led to conflicts with both Christian and Muslim factions Mr Goraieb said the paper stands for a united Lebanon an end to all foreign intervention.