The Cyprus Mail – the island’s oldest newspaper – celebrated its 75th anniversary on November 2, 2020.
To mark this milestone birthday, the Cyprus Mail has produced a 160-page, hard-backed book Cyprus Mail: 75 Years which will be available with the print issue of the Sunday Mail on November 29.
This anniversary publication offers snippets of real time history – from post-World War II to the coronavirus pandemic – as the Cyprus Mail reported it through excerpts of original articles, reproduced front pages and photographs.
When the first issue of the Cyprus Mail – then, just a tiny, two-page tabloid – hit the news stands on November 2, 1945, the war had just ended. In a time of paper rationing, power cuts and an increasingly repressive British colonial government, owner Iacovos Iacovides took a big financial gamble.
For the paper’s readers it was a gamble that paid off. Through the pages of the Cyprus Mail, they were kept informed of the profound impact of the post-war years on Cyprus. Events ranged from the detention in Cyprus of thousands of Jewish refugees trying to break the British blockade and reach Palestine in the late 1940s, to the rise of Eoka and its demand for Enosis in the 1950s.
From the flawed independence of 1960 to the intercommunal troubles of 1960s, and from the coup and Turkish invasion of 1974 to the tortuous attempts to stitch the country back together ever since, the Cyprus Mail stayed true to its readers and provided objective news coverage. This is the legacy of the newspaper which is showcased in Cyprus Mail: 75 Years.
Interspersed with these historic events, the book includes many highly entertaining, quirky and evocative stories about life in Cyprus.
Few professions have changed more in the last 75 years than the newspaper industry. When Iacovides published his first issue in 1945, his concern was about lines of lead print, paper availability and buying a printing press that could produce a whopping six-page newspaper. Even when he died, more than 40 years later in 1988, those concerns had not changed significantly.
Once his two sons took over, the Cyprus Mail had to enter a whole new publishing world, first with computerisation and then the internet. The paper’s print edition is still a source of pride but, like all newspapers, a major focus is on the Cyprus Mail website and meeting the needs of the ever-expanding number of readers worldwide who expect constantly updated news.
The Cyprus Mail has met these new challenges head-on so successfully that it is the number one English-language news website in Cyprus. Aside from its loyal Cyprus-based readers, the website’s reach is truly global. People in Britain, Australia, the United States and South Africa, for example, now rely on the Cyprus Mail for their news and views on Cyprus. By this month, page views had reached over 15 million.
That the newspaper has been able to expand its reach so successfully is down to Limassol lawyer Andreas Neocleous who took over the Cyprus Mail in 2019. Since then, both the print issue and website have been revitalised: the former with extra pages and expanded local content, the latter with dedicated Business, Good Living and Luxury Living portals.
Cyprus Mail: 75 Years, which has been sponsored by the Bank of Cyprus, provides a fascinating glimpse into Cyprus’ turbulent past as it was lived through the pages of the Cyprus Mail. But it is also the history of a newspaper, proud to be celebrating its 75th anniversary with its readers.
Cyprus Mail: 75 Years is available with the print issue of the Sunday Mail on November 29, for just an additional 1.10 euros (2.90 euros total)
