Near death of a star

In late January I was asked to look into the closure of the Daily Star, Lebanon’s only English language daily. But discussions to financially prop up the paper were going on behind closed doors, so without a shareholder to quote, the story, as they say, was dead in the water. It also looked as if ‘the DS’ could be as well, and that this commentary might have been a eulogy of sorts. On January 14, the DS was ordered to cease operations following a court order requested by Standard Chartered Bank over a loan of some $700,000. The presses were at a stand still, staff were on leave until further notice and the website frozen on the date the plug was pulled. It took until February 2 for the paper to raise the cash to get back on the newsstands. To the hacks, editorial staff and interns that have spent