Since 2008, The National aimed to be the Middle East’s most influential English-language newspaper. It hired editors and reporters from top publications like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Daily Telegraph for its launch and served as a springboard for journalists who went on to major careers, including Project Brazen co-founder Bradley Hope, WSJ’s Keach Hagey, The New Yorker contributor Rania Abouzeid, me, and my colleague Kelsey Warner, who covered business and tech during her five-year stint.

As for me, I only worked there for eight weeks, two of them before the paper went live. It was the summer of 2008, and the dominant story was the mounting debt weighing down Dubai Inc. When it became clear that we needed to tiptoe around it, I left.

The limitations were a result of the country’s media laws and, perhaps, some self-censorship. But the publication remains a must-read and attracts a sizable audience. Its stories provide an important service to readers in the UAE and beyond, and indeed its reporting appears frequently in Semafor newsletters.