Levant Herald

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Levant Herald was a bilingual English–French daily newspaper based in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in the Ottoman Empire. It ran from 1856 to 1914 and was founded by James Carlile McCoan, who also edited it. The paper began life as the Galata Courier and was published by British residents in the Ottoman Empire.

It sometimes faced bans and periods of closure. The paper briefly shut down from May 29 to July 24, 1878. On July 24, 1878, its weekly companion, the Constantinople Messenger, began publication as an eight-page paper on Wednesdays.

From 1890 to 1914 the paper appeared under the title The Levant Herald and Eastern Express. Editors included Edgar Whitaker. The newspaper covered major events of the era, such as Ottoman–Russian relations, the Bulgarian question, Balkan tensions, and the Russo–Ottoman War.

Najib Al Hajj was the Cairo correspondent. The Levant Herald supported Sultan Murad V and received financial aid from Egyptian ruler Ismail Pasha in the 1870s, helping to oppose Abdulhamit.

Mark Twain mentions the Levant Herald in The Innocents Abroad (Chapter 34). The paper was often censored by Ottoman authorities in the late 1860s for reports on Crete rebels. In 1907 it sold about 5,200 copies. The newspaper ceased publication in 1914. Its sister newspaper was the Constantinople Messenger.