Maldives news, front pages compared
Crosswire tracks 4 major Maldives news outlets. Preview their homepages side by side below — switch between two, three and four columns, go compact, or translate every page into your language.
The Maldives media landscape on Crosswire
Crosswire lays the Maldives' front pages next to one another so you can see which stories lead where, how headlines are framed, and what one outlet foregrounds that another leaves out. All 4 titles tracked in the Maldives sit near the editorial centre in our classification, which is common where the press is dominated by public broadcasters and agencies, or where no confident left/right rating was available. Comparison here is less about political line than about which stories each newsroom judges worth the top of the page.
By kind of outlet, the 4 titles break down as 2 digital-native outlets (Sun Online and Avas), 1 daily newspaper (Mihaaru) and 1 public broadcaster (PSM News). The public-service broadcaster is PSM News — the natural fixed point for a comparison, because a public remit is breadth rather than a party line.
The Maldives sits in South Asia, on Crosswire's Asia hub. By outlets tracked it is 8th of the 8 countries in South Asia and 28th of the 33 across Asia, where the average is 5.1 outlets per country. Its neighbours in South Asia with hubs of their own are Bangladesh (6), Sri Lanka (6), Nepal (6), India (5), Pakistan (5), Afghanistan (5) and Bhutan (4).
Leaning groupings are approximate guides drawn from widely cited media-bias assessments — see the methodology and what the labels can and can't tell you. Counts are taken from the directory as of .
Which are the Maldives' main news outlets?
Across the Maldives' editorial spectrum, Crosswire currently lists near the center, Mihaaru, Sun Online, Avas and PSM News. Each outlet below links to a full profile — its facts, editorial leaning and a live front-page preview — and the comparison view above shows any of them side by side.
The Maldives' leading Dhivehi-language daily, launched in May 2016 by journalists from Haveeru after that paper, the country's oldest, was closed by court order. Based in Male, Mihaaru dominates domestic print and online readership with coverage of politics, the economy, island communities and sport, and also produces the English-language Edition.
One of the Maldives' most-read online news services, published from Male by the Sun Media Group. Sun Online reports in Dhivehi, with a companion English edition, covering politics, courts, tourism and atoll affairs. Operating since 2010, it competes with Mihaaru and Avas at the centre of the country's crowded digital news market.
A Male-based digital newspaper that has become one of the Maldives' principal online news sources. Avas publishes continuously updated coverage of Maldivian politics, business, tourism and sport in Dhivehi alongside an English edition, and is known for fast reporting on parliamentary and presidential politics in the capital.
The news portal of Public Service Media, the Maldives' state broadcaster, which runs Television Maldives, on air since 1978, and the national radio services. PSM News carries official announcements, national politics and atoll-level stories in Dhivehi and English, reflecting the government-funded broadcaster's public service remit across the archipelago.
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Reading the news critically
The vocabulary and the method behind these comparisons.