Koha Jone

Koha Jonë is one of the oldest continuous newspapers in the country. Published first as an official gazette of the Labor Party for the region of Lezhe, it was privatized and published as independent newspaper since 1991. Between 1992 and 1997, it was considered one of the most critical newspapers against the government of the era and was burned down, allegedly by the secret services of the time. In 1993, two of its editors, Aleksandër Frangaj and Martin Leka were arrested and charged for "exposing military secrets" and for disseminating false information, a penal offense in Albania up to 2012. Its journalists were repeatedly harassed and, in several cases, beaten or imprisoned.

However, after 1997 collapse of the Democratic Party rule, some of the Koha Jonë staff managed to get government positions, including the then Editor in Chief Ben Blushi, who became deputy minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Education, while Martin Leka, one of the editors, become director in the public television under the leftwing government.

Koha Jonë faced stiff competition after 1998, when Shekulli Newspaper started to sell for 10 Lek (a copy of Koha Jonë was 50 Lek). Nikoll Lesi, at that time sole owner of the newspaper and Member of the Parliament, tried to fight the problem through antidumping legislation. Shekulli increased the price to 20 Lek, still less than half of Koha Jonë and other newspaper prices. In 2001, several other newspapers like Panorama, Dita Informacion (now defunct), Korrieri (now defunct) etc, appeared in the market with the same price and Koha Jonë lost relevance gradually over the years.

After some attempts to rebuild the newspaper audience, including a takeover from Aleksandër Frangaj in 2007, the newspaper ownership was transferred once again to Nikoll Lesi in 2013. As for 2016, Koha Jonë had revenues of 15.9 million Lek (0.12 Mio USD) and has about 2.7% of the print media market.

As for 2017, the newspaper prints 2000 to 5,500 copies daily.