As the first issue of Gulf News began to gently roll off the press, Tim Edgar and his team stood in the print room, applauding each other.
“I can clearly recall the great sense of anticipation, followed by excitement and finally elation as we snatched the first copies from the rollers and passed them to each other to look at,” Edgar said in a special report in Gulf News’ 30th anniversary magazine. “Within minutes the room was filled with the smell of wet ink and newsprint and nobody could hear one another speak above the noise of the press as it quickly gathered speed. This was to become a daily ritual but that day it was something very special. It was the day Gulf News was born.”
In the days after, Edgar and his team faced quite a challenge. Although there were plenty of international stories on the newswires and syndicated features available, local headline news was much harder to find. Traditional news sources such as the police and government officials were unused to talking to the media and when the team did unearth stories, they often had to be treated very sensitively.
“For the first few weeks I would frequently wake up in the night worried about whether people liked the paper. Would they read it and buy it again? But, encouraged by the many positive comments that began to come from our readers, my nightmares quickly turned to whether we could actually fill the paper with enough news every day,” he said.
“It took a great deal of time and patience for reporters to earn the respect and trust of people who would eventually provide us with enough local news for us to be accepted as a proper local newspaper,” Edgar said.
