The Edge Financial Daily ends run after 13 years
CORONAVIRUS | The media industry here suffered its first casualty as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic with the ending of The Edge Financial Daily (FD).
In a note to readers announcing the last issue today, The Edge publisher and chief executive officer Ho Kay Tat and editor-in-chief Azam Aris said FD was unable to cope with both the daily’s shift to digital operations and the subsequent movement control order (MCO)...
CORONAVIRUS | The media industry here suffered its first casualty as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic with the ending of The Edge Financial Daily (FD).
In a note to readers announcing the last issue today, The Edge publisher and chief executive officer Ho Kay Tat and editor-in-chief Azam Aris said FD was unable to cope with both the daily’s shift to digital operations and the subsequent movement control order (MCO).
Launched in May 2007 at the start of the global financial crisis, FD has survived a 13-year run, with the exception of a brief three-month halt in operations in 2015 when the then BN-led Home Ministry suspended The Edge’s publishing permits following its coverage of the 1MDB scandal.
“Sadly, FD is unable to survive the double onslaught of the shift to digital news and the current lockdown of the economy because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This will, therefore, be the last issue of FD. But it will not be the last stories our journalists will write for you,” Ho and Azam said in a statement.
FD’s sister publication, The Edge Weekly, remains in operations.
The new Perikatan Nasional government imposed the MCO on March 18 in a bid to contain the Covid-19 outbreak. All business operations, bar those deemed essential services, are to cease during the duration of the order, which is currently slated to end on April 28.
On Oct 9, 2019, Utusan Malaysia officially ceased operation 80 years after the Malay daily was first published. It began as Utusan Melayu in Jawi in 1939.
Utusan was the third long-standing daily paper after Tamil Nesan (1924-2019) and the print edition of the Malay Mail (1896-2018) to cease publications within a 10-month stretch.
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