Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers

Expand Your Collection with Premium Content

East View is pleased to offer the Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers Premium collection (MENA Premium). Users can purchase the MENA Premium collection package as a complement to the freely available Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers Open Access collection.

Comprising five in-copyright newspapers from across the region, the MENA Premium collection spans the period of 1956-2021 and offers viewpoints on key events of the 20th century and beyond, including the recent Arab Spring. The MENA Premium collection represents a collaboration between East View and the publishers of each title to make current, in-copyright material available to a global audience.

MENA Premium Collection Titles:

al-Akhbār (الاخبار, Lebanon, 2006-2021): Founded in 2006, al-Akhbār brings a modern approach with its publishing style and maintains a centricity on how the news and international events affect – and are perceived by – the dynamic and complex Lebanese national population.

al-Dustūr (الدستور, Jordan, 1967-2000): Founded in 1967, al-Dustūr plays a firm role in the institution of the modern Jordanian press. Known as Jordan’s second daily newspaper in terms of distribution and prominence. The title is a successor to Filasṭīn in this collection.

al-Jumhūrīyah (الجمهورية, Egypt, 1962-1986): Founded in 1953 out of the aftermath of the Egyptian Revolution and having Anwar Sadat as its initial managing director, al-Jumhūrīyah represented a turning point in Egyptian press by being the first to present both opinion and news. It continues to be a well-regarded and widely read national newspaper.

al-Riyāḍ (الرياض, Saudi Arabia, 1972-1996): Founded in 1956, al-Riyāḍ is independent but closely aligned with the Saudi state. The newspaper was the first to achieve Saudization with its appointed editorial and managerial staff being citizens of that state. Its popularity and distribution in the Kingdom accelerated after becoming the first to introduce cartoon caricature in the Saudi press.

Filasṭīn (فلسطين, Israel/Palestine, 1956-1967): Founded in 1911, Filasṭīn was one of the most prominent newspapers during the time of Ottoman rule. The paper was shut down on multiple occasions by both Ottoman and British overseers due to its anti-Zionist and Anti-Greek Orthodox positions. The successor newspaper to Filasṭīn is the newspaper al-Dustūr, also found in this collection.

MENA Premium Collection Features:

• Contains over 33,000 issues and over 620,000 pages of in-copyright content
• Full page-level digitization, complete original graphics and searchable text
• Platform offers both Arabic and English-language interfaces
• Crowd-sourced OCR text correction functionality
• Hosted on the same platform as the Open Access Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers collection, allowing for searching across all titles – over 900,000 pages of total content

Are you a CRL member?

CRL member institutions automatically receive access to the MENA Premium collection. Non-CRL institutions that wish to purchase the MENA Premium collection should contact us for more information.

East View and the Center for Research Libraries have created the GPA CRL Alliance to steer the development of a series of thematically designed databases for East View’s Global Press Archive program to meet the specific needs and priorities of CRL members. Launched in 2019, the charter phase of the GPA CRL Alliance resulted in the creation of nine collections, encompassing hundreds of newspaper titles and totaling over 4.5 million pages, of which 3 million pages are fully Open Access.

The first of these collections – Late Qing and Republican-Era Chinese Newspapers, Middle Eastern and North African Newspapers, Independent and Revolutionary Mexican Newspapers, Imperial Russian Newspapers, Southeast Asian Newspapers, and South Asian Newspapers – are all Open Access collections and are the result of close collaboration between East View and CRL, with CRL advisors selecting and curating the content, and CRL members funding the collections to facilitate global Open Access.

Encouraged by the positive results of Phase 1, a second phase of the GPA CRL Alliance is now underway. The continuation of this highly successful academic-commercial partnership between CRL and East View will serve our shared values of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and continue to extend access to global newspaper collections to the widest possible audience. Fundraising for Phase 2 has ended but CRL members are still encouraged to contribute to the program.

Click the link below to learn more about the GPA CRL Alliance, available collections, and plans for the next phase of the Alliance.