Journalism matters for Lebanon, now more than ever. Driven by this burning conviction, we
are proudly announcing the launch of L’Orient Today, accessible now at
www.lorient.today.
After nearly a century of telling the news in French, we've decided to open up and expand
into English with this sister publication to L’Orient-Le Jour, while keeping at the forefront our
historic values: defending freedom, openness and tolerance; demanding transparency and
accountability; promoting equality and human rights; caring for society’s weakest; and
strengthening the ties between Lebanon, its diaspora and the world.
Our country is going through historic changes that could jeopardize its mere existence. A
year ago, Lebanon was rocked by major protests, the thawra, against a failed elite.The
people unleashed their discontent as Lebanon’s dying economic system began its collapse.
Shedding partisan identities, citizens took to the streets in a powerful rebuke against the
sectarian order. This long-awaited reawakening created an immense need for credible
journalism for Lebanese at home and abroad, who clung to their smartphone screens trying
to follow and understand the situation. This ongoing economic downfall and the tragedy of
the Aug. 4 Beirut port explosion has pushed thousands of citizens to emigrate and thrown an
already fragile media ecosystem into turmoil, reducing the diversity of sources to the bare —
and insufficient — minimum.
Today we are lacking information, points of view and critical but constructive thinking to help
figure out how to tackle the challenges the country is facing. In this exceptional environment,
L’Orient Today will provide hard-hitting coverage of politics, society and the economy, but
will also go beyond that, aiming to tell readers what is driving the news. Our journalistic goal
will not be achieved solely by covering facts made public, but also by uncovering realities
that matter for the public good. Holding power to account will be one of our most vital tasks,
buttressed by our staunch commitment to fact-checking and verification, and embodied in
our slogan: “Speak truth to power.” News will be the core of our work, yet opinion will be
crucial too, and so we intend to offer expert insight and a variety of perspectives to our
readers.
L’Orient Today will abide by a fundamental rule that applies to the entire OLJ group: editorial
independence and the full empowerment of the newsroom. Although we feel the need to
expand our offerings and spread our values through this new medium, launching an English
language edition obviously does not affect our historical attachment to French, which we’ve
been writing in for the last 96 years and will keep doing for as long as L’Orient-Le Jour
exists.
L’Orient-Le Jour’s long-term goal is to write a new chapter in the Middle Eastern media
landscape. At a time where most of the news outlets are either politically controlled or facing
financial difficulties, our objective is to build a media group that is both independent and
sustainable. As ambitious as this might be, we feel this is something we owe to Beirut, given
what our capital used to stand for in the Arab press.
There is no doubt that the image we will paint of Lebanon in the coming years will be mostly
grim. We pledge nonetheless to try to give you hope about Lebanon’s future. Read us -
we’ve lifted the paywall for a start -, share your feedback and, if you enjoy our work,
subscribe to join our community. Lebanon needs journalism, and journalism needs you.
