Type | Daily newspaper |
---|---|
Format | Compact |
Owner(s) | Al-Masry Al-Youm for Journalism and Publication |
Editor | Ali Al Sayed |
Founded | 7 June 2004 |
Political alignment | Independent reformist liberal |
Headquarters | Garden City, Cairo, Egypt |
Circulation | 250.000 (2012) |
Website |
http://www.almasryalyoum.com (in Arabic) http://almasryalyoum.com/en |
Al-Masry Al-Youm (Arabic: المصرى اليوم al-Maṣrī l-Yawm, IPA: [elˈmɑsˤɾi lˈjoːm], meaning The Egyptian Today) is an Egyptian privately owned daily newspaper that was first published in June 2004. It is published in Arabic and also maintains a companion website, almasryalyoum.com, which is also written in Arabic. An English version of the website was introduced in 2009 as the Al-masry Al-youm English Edition, which later evolved into Egypt Independent. It strives to be a full-service multimedia news organization for Egypt.
The newspaper was founded in late 2002 by Salah Diab, an Egyptian businessman whose grandfather (Tawfik Diab) was one of Egypt's most renowned publishers in the 1930s and 1940s. Hisham Kassem is also a founder of Al Masry Al Youm. In 2004, its establishment was finalized, and on 7 June 2004, it published its first edition. The publisher of the daily is Al-Masry Al-Youm for Journalism and Publication.
Magdi El Galad is one the former editors-in-chief of the paper. Until 3 May 2014 Mohamed Salmawi served as editor-in-chief of the daily when Ali Al Sayed was appointed to the post.
The paper has a liberal leaning. It initially circulated primarily amongst Cairo’s intellectual elite, providing objective news coverage in the belief that good news would beat sensationalist reporting found in other Egyptian print media. It has been said that the paper's launch "helped inaugurate a new opening for independent media in Egypt.". The 2005 circulation of the daily was 50,000 copies. After 3 three years, it was challenging Al-Ahram for the status of being the national paper of record. As of 2009 it was regarded as the most influential newspaper in Egypt.
It has successfully responded to the Egyptian media market as a whole and not a single political party, like many Egyptian opposition papers, and was unafraid to take on hard-hitting topics, like governmental news outlets. Further, it harnessed the energy of young journalists, giving them incentives to produce good work.