Lebanon’s strike reaches the media.. the official news agency stops broadcasting

For the first time in its history, the National Information Agency, affiliated to the Lebanese Ministry of Information, started at dawn on Friday, local time, to stop publishing news, as its employees joined the public sector strike, like all employees across the country.

The move came after employees of the official agency, with them, Minister of Information in the caretaker government, Ziad al-Makari, felt “the impossibility of reaching the workplace to follow up on their message, which they never excused themselves from.”

The agency published a statement at dawn on Friday, saying: “Following the statement of the general assembly of workers in the Ministry of Information last Thursday and the announcement of the warning strike for two days, and after the pain of living reached an amount that a person could no longer bear, the National News Agency regrets to announce the start of the open strike as of Friday morning, Perhaps her silence, for the first time in her history, is more eloquent than her voice, which has always filled the media space and was the main source of certain news across Lebanon.

The statement added: “The Agency, while acknowledging Minister of Information Ziyad Al-Makari for his sincere efforts in trying to rescue its employees from their miserable conditions, and registering the Director-General, Dr. Her work team is still digging it with a needle of patience, and because of the exacerbation of crises that prevent harmonization between the sense of responsible job and the ability to reach the center of work.”
The agency concluded the statement, saying: “We renew our apology to all those whose voice and activity will be withheld by virtue of the strike, and we remain armed with the belief in a better tomorrow that carries even a small part of a solution that will bring us back to our offices and our message, and an antidote that provides the entire public sector – and we are part of it – with the elixir of survival.”

In exclusive statements to Sky News Arabia, the Lebanese Minister of Information said: “We regret reaching this stage, as it is the first time in the history of the National Media Agency in Lebanon that it stops publishing and issuing official news bulletins on its website and pages.”