Iran: President's aide launches newspaper, Khorshid

Posted by Katherine Thompson on October 6, 2008 at 9:01 AM

An aide of Irans's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is launching a newspaper, named the "Khorshid" or "Sun." It is due to hit the newsstands on Saturday.

The newspaper, which will be published by Mohammad Paryab, will cover everything from political issues to soap operas. Initial circulation is expected to be around 200,000. The timing of the launch is crucial, being eight months before the presidential elections, resulting in speculation that the newspaper will be used to push Ahmadinejad's re-election.

Paryab denied the talk. "No, the government has other platforms and as you can see there is only one page about political news in Khorshid, so it is not useful for that purpose," he told AFP.

"If we wanted to do that, we would have allocated 10 to 12 pages of the 24-page newspaper for political news," said Paryab, who used to be deputy government spokesman and secretary of the presidency information council.

The price is 1,000 rials, approximately a dollar. Khorshid is financed by the state-run social security organisation.

Under Ahmadinejad's Presidency, Iranian media has been hit by a raft of closures.

Source: EJC Media and AFP