Arab News: The beginning of a great newspaper
It has been a long time since I last wrote for Arab News, the pride of English language newspapers in the Arab world. I had spent over 17 years with the newspaper that I founded with other gentlemen including professional Saudis and a few non-Saudis in l974. It was printed in just 12 pages or about half the present size. We were overwhelmed by its success as thousands of people of many nationalities grabbed it with zest and affection as it was the first English language daily in the Kingdom although there had been other English dailies, and good ones in the region notably Kuwait, the UAE and Egypt. Soon enough advertising followed and within a few months some readers suggested we reduce the number of ads although we were dependent on them for revenue to pay for printing, paper, staffing and the rest of services required to bring out a full sized daily in broadsheet size, like the one you are reading now. A couple of years later we started receiving subscription requests from the Gulf and other countries including those in Europe and the United States. The reason is simple but gratifying for us because many of those who return home remain nostalgic and want to know what is happening in Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam. So they subscribe. At least this was the case until the advent of the Internet when the size of the paper was changed from tabloid to broadsheet and the number of pages increased from 12 to 16, then 20 and at times 24 when advertising justified the expense, presently 28. The first breakthrough came with our exclusive interview with a head of state, the Shah of Iran Mohammed Reza Pehlavi, now dead and buried in Egypt because no other country including the United States would permit his burial in their soil. The impact was phenomenal for a small newspaper published in an Arab country to persuade the Shah of Iran to talk to its readers. More interviews followed and I had the honor of carrying the flag from place to place. More about this in later columns. In the meantime we found it necessary to hire more editors as we needed them to help us enlarge the paper to work in various capacities. The obvious mine of talents and experience at reasonable rates to us was India as it had a large number of English language papers that continued to hire, train and also permit their staff to go wherever they wanted. Thus the Gulf papers were and are nearly staffed by Indians. That’s where I looked first. Scores of colleagues came and went back years later. They were good, well trained and well behaved in a totally different society. Both sides have been supremely satisfied. — Farouk Luqman is an eminent journalist based in Jeddah.
