A retrospective on an early digital publishing system built by Mohamed-Yassine Belatar.
e-Jarida was a PHP content management system created in the early 2010s to launch and administer websites and online newspapers.
This repository preserves the history, product thinking and publicly verifiable documentation of the project. It does not currently contain the original production source code.
At a time when many local publishers needed a practical path to digital publishing, e-Jarida provided a reusable system for creating and operating news websites.
The platform focused on the everyday needs of editorial teams:
- publishing and organizing articles;
- adding video content;
- managing an online newspaper without editing source code;
- connecting site activity to web analytics;
- reusing one CMS foundation across multiple publications.
The following tutorials remain publicly available on the author's YouTube channel:
| Date | Tutorial | Link |
|---|---|---|
| 26 July 2013 | Adding a video to an online newspaper | Watch on YouTube |
| 30 July 2013 | Adding an article to an online newspaper | Watch on YouTube |
| 2 August 2013 | Installing Google Analytics on a website | Watch on YouTube |
These videos establish that the publishing workflow was documented publicly by July 2013.
flowchart LR
A[Editorial user] --> B[e-Jarida administration]
B --> C[Articles]
B --> D[Video content]
B --> E[Site configuration]
C --> F[Online newspaper]
D --> F
E --> F
F --> G[Readers]
F --> H[Web analytics]
- Product conception
- PHP CMS development
- Reusable website and newspaper foundation
- Administration workflows for non-technical users
- Deployment and adaptation for different publishing projects
- User documentation and video tutorials
e-Jarida marks the beginning of a longer product journey:
- Publish information through a reusable CMS.
- Monitor information through press and media-monitoring tools.
- Organize and analyse information through multilingual data workflows.
- Transform information into useful signals through MONIT.
The technology changed, but the core question remained constant: how can software make complex information easier to use?
- Recover and audit surviving source-code archives
- Add historical screenshots where ownership can be verified
- Document the original module structure
- List representative deployments that can be cited publicly
- Publish a technical retrospective on maintaining a reusable PHP CMS
Any recovered source code will be reviewed for credentials, personal data, third-party assets and licensing before publication.
Mohamed-Yassine Belatar — Founder of AL LABS and SALVIA, building MONIT.
Historical product case study. No original source code or open-source license is provided at this stage.