regards
arno tausch
----------
> From: Le Monde diplomatique <dispatch@london.monde-diplomatique.fr>
> To: English edition dispatch <dispatch@london.monde-diplomatique.fr>
> Subject: Taking a stand
> Date: Mittwoch, 16. September 1998 10:46
>
>
>
> Dear readers,
>
> This week (20 September) will see the first of three
> supplements of Le Monde diplomatique which are being printed
> and distributed by The Guardian Weekly (GW) on a free trial
> basis (September, October, November).
>
> The GW is part of Guardian Publications Ltd., UK, and it is
> distributed worldwide, sold mainly by subscription.
>
> We hope this will be the start of a regular printed edition
> of Le Monde diplomatique to which you or your friends may
> wish to subscribe, jointly with The Guardian Weekly.
>
> To secure a copy of this first edition, contact your local
> newsagent or the Guardian Weekly to place an order. The GW
> can be contacted for regular subscriptions at
> <mailto: gwsubs@guardian.co.uk>.
>
>
>
> In this first issue, Ignacio Ramonet writes:
>
> Le Monde diplomatique
> Taking a stand
>
> We are delighted to welcome readers of The Guardian Weekly
> into the family of people who are regular readers of Le
> Monde diplomatique...
>
> Our desire to broaden the readership of Le Monde
> diplomatique beyond the confines of France is not a recent
> thing. Already one third of total sales of our
> French-language edition are to readers overseas. From the
> start, we have been not a French newspaper that happens to
> sell abroad, but an international paper that happens to be
> based in France. Not only does our newspaper offer broad
> coverage of major world developments, but we also open our
> pages to intellectuals, experts, journalists, writers and
> public figures from all around the world. This has been a
> major contributing factor in our success.
>
> Le Monde diplomatique is in excellent health. Over the past
> ten years our circulation has doubled - rising from 135,000
> copies at the end of 1987 to 270,000 by late 1997. Our
> readers tend to be young - 81% of them are under 49 and 41%
> under 34. We were the first paper in France to have its own
> site on the Internet, and visits to our French-language site
> are now approaching 200,000 per week...
>
> Newspapers today are going through a bad patch. So what we
> have achieved is good news for all who care about freedom of
> expression, and who want to see that freedom operating in
> the interests of reliable reporting, a concern for justice
> and an ethic of solidarity...
>
> Our readers appreciate us because we are serious about our
> journalism. They like the fact that, in dealing with the
> news, we dig deeply into issues of economics, sociology,
> politics, science, technology, ecology, culture and
> ideology. They want to understand the complexities of the
> global economy, and what it means for the world in which we
> live. They want to know about new problems emerging in our
> societies, about the strategies of the world’s major powers,
> and about the new kinds of conflicts that are shaking the
> world’s major regions.
>
> This is the logic underlying our efforts in the past few
> years to build foreign-language editions and partnerships
> with newspapers outside France. Le Monde diplomatique is now
> published on a monthly basis in seven different national
> editions: in Italy with Il Manifesto; in Germany with
> Tageszeitung; in Switzerland with WochenZeitung; in Spain
> with the publisher L-Press; in Mexico with Editorial Sans
> Frontières; in Greece with the daily Eleftherotypia; and in
> the Arab world with the Beirut daily An-Nahar. The newspaper
> is also available on the Internet in a Japanese version
> published out of Tokyo. In addition, our bimonthly magazine
> Manière de Voir is published in both Greek and Portuguese. A
> printed English edition is long overdue to complement the
> existing Internet and email editions.
>
> This is a major project. We believe it promises well for the
> future. And within this continuing activity we attach the
> greatest importance to the success of our collaboration with
> The Guardian.
>
> IGNACIO RAMONET
> Director of Le Monde diplomatique
>
>
>