Yisrael Hayom hard to miss

Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on July 31, 2007 at 9:45 PM

Monday's first edition of Yisrael Hayom was difficult to overlook, reported the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

“This is not just a newspaper, it is a newspaper with an agenda,” wrote Haaretz's Asaf Carmel.

The first edition of the free daily contained an exclusive article about Israel's accountant general to contain corruption and article about the war waged by the sons of light, headed by the accountant general and the supreme court president, against the sons of darkness, led by the prime minister, Haaretz reported.

“There is free speech and freedom of the press in Israel,” wrote the paper's editor, Amos Regev, in the opening editorial, “but not all opinions are given appropriate expression. It sometimes seems as though 'news' is only bad news, whereas the good news, the beautiful aspects, are kept from the readers. This is not our opinion. The Israeli public deserves a better press, a 'different kind of journalism.'”

Monday, 150,000 copies of the newspaper, owned by American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, were distributed for free throughout the country, with some readers, several hundred of whom newspaper executives consider to be public opinion leaders, even found it delivered in their mailboxes. Newspaper executives have planned to expand distribution in the near future to compete with high-circulation daily Yedioth Aronoth, which is estimated to have 280,000 copies on weekdays, Carmel wrote.

The newspaper is currently printing 32 stapled pages, with short news articles surrounding main front-page reports.