Staff fight to 'keep website alive' after Egypt paper closure

Egypt's independent English-language newspaper, Daily News Egypt, has ceased publication abruptly, after seven years.

In a farewell editorial, which has since been deleted from its website but is available elsewhere, the team behind the paper expressed "deep regret" about the sudden closure.

They also called on management to keep the website alive – "even if it means that we have to finance it ourselves".

Staff were told about the closure on Thursday and the final edition was published over the weekend.

The editorial read: "After seven years of providing hard breaking news and analysis on Egypt, and being the only independent English-language printed daily in the country, we regret to inform our loyal readers that, as far as the current editorial staff was informed, the paper will no longer be published.

"As for the website, a valuable archive of the past seven years of Egypt’s history - we are unfortunately not certain of its fate.

"We have specifically and repeatedly requested from the management of the owning company, Egyptian Media Services, to keep the website alive, even if it means that we, the current editors and reporters, have to finance it ourselves. Both ethically and morally, we believe we should be given priority on its ownership."

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