In conjunction with the Kingdom’s celebrations of Independence Day, Al-Rai newspaper celebrates its fifty-fifth anniversary in a different way than was usual. The celebration was the title of a new phase of the transition to the digital world while preserving the paper version.
Two weeks ago, Al-Rai newspaper launched “Al-Rai Media” and its digital platforms and modern digital studios to continue Al-Rai’s development towards the digital world and cyberspace and to benefit from all the tremendous developments in digital technology.
The launch of the digital platforms was a result of solidarity, harmony, and cooperation between management and editing. There was a workshop and daily follow-up by the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Samih Al-Maaytah, the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Khaled Al-Shaqran, and the General Manager, in addition to a team working in editing and management to reach the launch of the digital platforms and studios, in which the current Prime Minister, Dr. Jaafar Hassan, and the Minister of Government Communications, Dr. Muhammad Al-Momani, had an effective role in supporting the idea of moving to the digital world and digital platforms.
Before going into the details of the importance of moving to the digital world for paper newspapers, which already began dealing with developments in cyberspace years ago, we must talk about the conditions that the daily press went through and the decisions that governments took to maintain the continuity of these newspapers.
Since 2012, the Jordanian print press has suffered from major financial crises, but it has always been able to continue and innovate in journalistic materials and content to keep pace with the massive spread of social media, the Internet and cyberspace to the point where we have come to say that the world has transformed from “a small village to a small screen.”
Despite the tremendous development in social media, the virtual world and communication, daily newspapers at that time remained “captive” of the traditional methods of dealing with editorial content, or dealing with commercial advertising, which began to decrease in newspapers due to other means of communication and communication, which are considered less costly to the advertiser. The Corona crisis came to greatly increase the suffering of the print press, and the debts burdened it, especially since the newspapers were closed and were absent from publication for a period exceeding two months, which increased their crisis, but the newspapers are thanks to the journalists. It was able to return strongly and provide advanced, professional media work that brought back readers and followers. Daily newspapers also began taking serious steps to move to the digital world, and the “pdf” version of newspapers became widespread electronically and digitally and was widely distributed electronically, but the crisis was great.
The reality of daily newspapers led the state, under the directives of His Majesty King Abdullah II, especially after the Corona crisis, to pay attention to the conditions of daily newspapers and take decisions and measures to support the continuity of print journalism. This is what the previous government, the government of Dr. Bishr Al-Khasawneh, did through decisions and procedures that help newspapers overcome their financial crises, especially in the wake of the Corona crisis, which posed the greatest challenge to daily print journalism. The beginning of the government procedures was the signing of the advance announcement agreement with Al-Rai newspaper, while Al-Dustour newspaper had signed it earlier, so that the newspapers would receive the price of the government announcement in advance for the next three years, with the aim of securing cash flow to solve their financial problems.
The most prominent decision to support daily print newspapers was in 2022, which required increasing the price of government advertising from 55 piasters to one dinar per word. Raising the price of a word was a constant demand of the Syndicate of Journalists and Print Newspapers, which constituted strong support from the state for the daily press to the extent that this decision provided a daily newspaper alone, for example but not limited to, about one million dinars annually more than was the case before raising the price of government advertising, according to the newspaper’s own estimates. This means that the volume of government advertising is very large in The daily press, and the three major newspapers “Al-Rai, Al-Ghad, and Al-Dustour” also benefit from the judicial announcement, which today constitutes the backbone of the continuity of these institutions, and this is also different from the government announcement.
The daily print press received direct support from Prime Minister Dr. Jaafar Hassan, who was keen to follow up on the conditions of the print press and support projects for transitioning to the digital world, as Jaafar Hassan’s government provided all the necessary conditions and even support for newspapers to move to the digital world without abandoning the paper version, which is what is always emphasized by the Minister of Government Communications, Dr. Muhammad Al-Momani, who follows on a daily basis the conditions of the daily newspapers and the projects for transitioning to electronic space, expressing the government’s support for the digital platform projects initiated by the daily newspapers.
Al-Rai newspaper has worked for years to develop its editorial content to attract readers and has entered more into electronic and digital media by relying on other unconventional content, whether in terms of scoops, news analysis, press reports, or short video clips. Al-Rai has expanded into video reports and video interviews, and here we say that daily newspapers have begun to do so, but they need to provide the best, but what is always required, even in the digital world, is to provide professional and objective content, especially since the daily press has been distinguished over the decades by credibility, objectivity, and professionalism, and it has Journalists with rich experiences and expertise must be relied upon to enter the digital world.
