Ethiopian, Tri-Weekly, All Female Run Newspaper Goes Daily

Panafrican News Agency, 5 September 2000

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia—Ethiopia’s tri-weekly Monitor newspaper, with an all-female crew at the controls, Tuesday started operating as a daily.

Lullit Michael is editor-in-chief of the new daily, and her deputy is also a female, Seble Bekele.

In its maiden edition, the Daily Monitor said its going daily was a fulfilment of a long-made promise by the owner-publisher.

Fitsum-za’ab Asghedom, an enterprising printer and publisher, launched The Monitor in the early 1990s after Ethiopia’s press law abolished censorship and allowed private newspapers to operate.

Some 31 private news publications, including two dozen weeklies and monthlies, currently operate in the country.

True to our tradition of being the trend-setter in this country, we have completed our preparations to be trailblazer once again and become the first private daily newspaper to ever be published in this country, Lullit wrote in a signed front page editorial.

She, however, gave no plans on how the new daily intends to widen its coverage scope nationally.

The 12-page maiden issue of the new daily appears no different from its hitherto tri-weekly editions as half of the pages are advertisements, while four pages were devoted to foreign news and a few local items.

Observers suggest that the paper hastily went daily to beat another private daily, which had announced to go daily on Ethiopian News Year’s Day which falls on 11 September.

The Ethiopian calendar is based on the old Julian calendar.