A new chapter opens today for Arab News. The paper goes regional. In addition to being published and printed in Saudi Arabia — in Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam — the paper is now also published and printed in Dubai. The move into the United Arab Emirates is seen as a logical step for Arab News which has managed to establish itself as the leading English-language daily in the Middle East, with the paper’s website currently getting 1.2 million hits a day. Dubai is a major offshore business center for Saudi Arabia. A large number of companies based in the bustling emirate do much if not all of their business in the Kingdom; they need the latest Saudi news, fresh every morning. Until now they have had to wait for it to be flown or driven in, as is the case elsewhere in the Gulf.
Going to Dubai is another first for Arab News. In 1989, it was the first Arab daily to print simultaneously in Washington, London, Cairo and Saudi Arabia; in February 1991 it was the first to get into Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion in 1991, even before liberation, smuggling copies in across the border.
The choice of Dubai is, however, about much more than providing businessmen in the UAE with Saudi news. The Dubai edition will have UAE content as well as providing the paper’s Arab, regional and international news and views. This is a major development for English-language news coverage in the Middle East as a whole. English is the language of international affairs and international business; it is the language that the Arab world has to use in communicating with the rest of the world. There are many other English-language dailies in the region of differing quality, but almost all are tied to one country or another, circulating only in that place. They are in effect local newspapers. This move breaks that tradition. Operating from Dubai is the first step in making Arab News “the” English-language daily throughout the Arab world, and beyond. It is a strategic move in developing an English-language Arab newspaper, one with an Arab viewpoint, covering the Arab affairs for an international readership.
