Of additional and ongoing importance has been Arab News’ long-term impact on the National Council on US-Arab Relations’ Joe Alex Morris Arab World Journalism Internship. From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, Arab News served as an invaluable educational and training ground for several then newly minted American graduates of schools of journalism and mass communications. The paper provided a priceless opportunity for these young journalists. Although the interns had not yet launched their careers, Arab News gave them a chance to practice reporting and assist with layout, editing copy, and in sharing state-of-the-art media technology with their colleagues, while at the same time improving their Arabic, being able to live in an Arab and Islamic environment, and learning under the mentoring and direction of Khaled Almaeena and his able staff.

The experience of enabling these emerging American media specialists to hone their skills at Arab News was more than beneficial to the interns personally and professionally. It enabled them subsequently to interpret developments in Saudi Arabia and other Arab and Islamic countries far more accurately and fairly than many specialists in publications elsewhere. Indeed, although many journalists in other countries were older and more experienced in different ways, they lacked the interns’ advantage of having first hand background, context, and perspective derived from living in the Kingdom and working at Arab News.

The formative apprenticeships at Arab News served as foundation and springboard for these then emerging American news specialists. Several among them are nowadays making their mark as accomplished authors, commentators and media analysts. That they have continued to contribute to a better Western and especially American understanding of the Arab and Islamic world in news agencies, think tanks and publishing, and that they are doing so as a direct result of their earlier time at Arab News, is no small achievement. It is but one among innumerable little known but powerful examples of Arab News’ past and contributing impact on millions within the Kingdom and the world beyond its shores.

— John Duke Anthony, PhD, is president and CEO of National Council on US-Arab Relations.