RIYADH, 16 March — As a young Saudi, I am disappointed in our printed media. This was brought home to me when I saw the outrage in the press over the recent fire at the Makkah girls’ school. After all, if the press had been more courageous in asking questions and challenging officials before the fire occurred, it may never have happened.
Normally, when I scan through several Saudi dailies I see the same thing: nothing but sweet talk about officials. There are a few exceptions, for instance the English dailies and Al-Watan, which emerged strongly more than a year ago. Al-Watan is not biased in its news coverage in favor of only one region, and tackles seriously the problems facing us as a nation.
All the other Saudi journalists may as well write in only one paper. At least then I would save money, time and energy by not having to buy half a dozen. And after all, they publish the same “news”, and the difference between them amounts only to the way they phrase their sentences.
As for honest competition; a thirst to get exclusives; the press being the champion of public causes; the role of the journalist as a seeker of truth — all this is a reality only in the foreign media, or Saudi newspapers published in London such as Asharq Al-Awsat.
A story in Arab News from three years ago remains engraved on my mind. It was about a group of extremists who had beaten and whipped a Kuwaiti college girl because she was not wearing her hijab. The five men waited for the girl to finish her classes. Then they grabbed her, threw her to the floor, and beat and whipped her. The college girl was hospitalized with a broken arm and injuries to her face.
Police arrested four of the suspects and the next day six Kuwait dailies carried the photos of the four suspects on the front page. A day later, all Kuwait’s newspaper editors met with the crown prince of Kuwait, who assured them that justice would be done and that such extremism was totally unacceptable.
Arab News chose to run the story prominently and carried the photographs of the girl.
But if the same had happened in Saudi Arabia, would the editors of the Kingdom’s Arabic dailies have done the same? Will the day come when photos of those who are found guilty of corrupt or inhuman acts get displayed for all to see on our newspaper’s front pages? Unfortunately, it seems that most of them are more interested in trying to win the hearts of officials than that of the public.
Last year I was scanning through the Saudi press and my eyes came across something amusing, but at the same time saddening.
The governor of Makkah had visited the office of a prominent newspaper based in Jeddah, Okaz. During the visit, he had apparently written a note of appreciation. Some days later, another prominent newspaper, Al-Riyadh, reported that Okaz had in fact not been entirely honest with the truth, because the governor had said that the paper was “among the best” in the Kingdom, and not — as Okaz had claimed — “the best”.
Is this what the Saudi press is all about? Is the competition between our newspapers merely to get the most praise from a government official? How does the public good fit into that scheme of things?
In a speech as one of the key speakers of this year’s Jeddah Economic Forum, Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal talked about some of the challenges Saudi Arabia has to face, particularly economic diversification, economic growth and job creation.
While talking about the third point, he mentioned very alarming statistics.
“According to the Central Department of Statistics of the government of Saudi Arabia, 28 percent of Saudis were born after the Gulf War of 1990. Saudi women have a fertility rate of 5.5 babies per woman, while the Middle East average is 3.5 and the world average is 2.2.”
However, our alarming population growth rate still remains largely ignored by our local press, and this speech was only reported verbatim: the consequences were not analyzed.
Of course, this is not the only problem our media needs to discuss more frankly. Others include the rise in the numbers of single females, the Kingdom having the highest divorce rate in the Gulf, unemployment, our education system that relies on memorization and is no longer fit to cope with changes in the world, our research centers in universities that contribute nothing to society, the need to create more jobs for female graduates, the harassment of families in public areas by irresponsible youths, bureaucracy in our government departments that hinder development.
It is the duty of the press to cover all this in detail, the duty of individual journalists who are obligated by their professional status to seek out the truth at any cost and then report it accurately — avoiding hypocrisy and sycophancy.
By doing so, not only will they win the hearts of officials, but also the hearts of the public — namely us, the citizens of Saudi Arabia.
