The General Administration of Local Press and News Agencies at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has announced the ranking for the country’s 74 newspapers where Financial Tribune is the only English-language daily mentioned in the list.
“In an effort to improve the media in Iran and set a series of common criteria for evaluating their performance, the ranking of local newspapers has been announced after several months of specialized review,” says the website of the ministry’s press and information deputy.
“The plan may be flawed as it is being implemented for the first time, but gradually will be improvised by also receiving the opinion of media partners so that it can be the basis for true ranking of local newspapers and help them initiate activities designed for quantitative and qualitative upgrading,” the website said.
The ranking is based on 29 indices, under three general categories of ‘content’, ‘print and distribution’ and ‘institutional development’, Mehr News Agency reported.
Each newspaper was given a form to fill with information on different factors authenticated by documents sent to the ministry.
At the top of the list stands Hamshahri, a Persian-language newspaper published by the Tehran Municipality, with 80.5 points. By a slight margin, with 78 points, the second rank is jointly shared by ‘Iran’, the Persian-language government newspaper and Donya-e-Eqtesad, a private economic daily and a sister publication of Financial Tribune.
Among the five English-language dailies published in Iran, Financial Tribune is the only one present in the list. With 44.5 points, the nascent newspaper which is into its second year now after its first issue was printed in August 2014, is ranked 29th, way above many other well-known mainstream dailies.
The indices for which the paper collected most of the points include the number of exclusive headlines, articles by the staff, infographics and reports and the number of valid media citations in the content indicators category.
High Score
In the print and distribution factors category, newsprint and printing gained a high score and among the indices for institutional development category, the number of insured employees was a winning factor for the daily.
Financial Tribune is Iran’s first English economic daily published by the private sector. A defining feature of the paper is that its publication was planned at a time when the private enterprise in and outside Iran prepared to resume normal working relations based on mutual respect after years of acrimony due to the western sanctions. With the historic nuclear accord signed with the six global powers in July, the doors have opened for doing business with Iran.
Though it covers a wide gamut of economic, political, social and cultural issues, the main focus of the newspaper is on commerce, in particular news/views related to promoting private enterprise and reducing the state’s role in the economy. Alireza Bakhtiari is the owner and managing director of the Financial Tribune and Donya-e-Eqtesad.
