As our daily newspapers arrive to accompany our morning cup of coffee, don’t we tend to take them for granted? Yet, even in the age of the Internet and satellite television, newspapers everywhere are performing the essential missions of keeping us informed and discussing issues of the day. Arab News, like its Arabic-language sister Asharq Al-Awsat, can be proud in the knowledge that in Saudi Arabia it is carrying out those solemn tasks in the best journalistic tradition.
What many Saudis may not appreciate, however, is how vital Arab News is to many newspaper readers outside the Kingdom and perhaps especially in the West. Since Sept. 11, 2001, there has been a growing interest in countries like mine, the United States, to learn more about Saudi Arabia, the Arab world and the religion of Islam. It is to Editor in Chief Khaled Almaeena’s credit that he has constantly upgraded the Arab News website to make it possible for readers around the world to access the daily newspaper and its archives.
You can see the impact the paper is having in the US simply by reading the letters to the editor from Americans that are published every day, received in the mail or online. What many may not know is that Arab News is also being read online in the highest offices of the American and other Western governments as well as in the editorial offices of the world’s leading newspapers and magazines. People are logging on to check out the day’s news and views in Saudi Arabia, while Arab News’ online archives are the place to go for background information about politics, economics of culture in the region. A case in point, perhaps, is my own experience as Middle East correspondent for TIME Magazine over the past 10 years.
Well before the paper went online, a visit to Arab News’ editorial offices was essential whenever I was writing about the Kingdom. The staff is not particularly large but it is rich in experience and knowledge, which would always be generously shared with foreign colleagues.
I recall how I prepared for my first interview with Crown Prince Abdullah in 1978, before the paper’s website was established, by browsing through the old-fashioned, non-digital archives at the Arab News headquarters in Jeddah. Arab News continues to be an essential source of information on issues like the Saudi war on terrorism, which became a major international story after the May 2003 attacks in Riyadh. The paper’s recent coverage of the shocking plight of Asian maids in the Kingdom was exemplary.
I am a fan of writing by Arab News commentators who have become famous in the West as authorities on the region’s politics and culture, including Khaled Almaeena, Khaled Batarfi, Raid Qusti and especially Abeer Mishkhas, one of Middle East’s most perceptive observers and finest writers. Also important are the paper’s regular columns by US-based commentators like James Zogby and Michael Saba, who often provide eye-opening perspectives that neither Saudis nor Americans would normally read.
It is interesting that Arab News often angers conservative Saudis for being too liberal and calling some traditions into question. American diplomats have been regular visitors to the Arab News headquarters, but not to praise Almaeena for his opinions, but to complain, sometimes angrily, about stories that the US views as anti-American. With critics coming from all directions, you might suspect that Arab News is doing something right.
I became a daily visitor to www.arabnews.com when the site started in April 2001. But after Sept. 11, 2001, that was no longer enough. I arranged with our local newsagent in Cairo to deliver the familiar green broadsheet to my door, along with the International Herald Tribune, Le Figaro and of course the Egyptian dailies. Nearly four years’ worth of papers are now stacked up in my office. Saudi Arabia had suddenly become a regular front-page story in the American press, and reporters like me covering the region had to stay constantly up to date. As a correspondent always on the road with spotty Internet access, I risked having my daily dose of Arab News interrupted too often. I begin my mornings with a thorough read of Arab News. The coffee is pretty good, too.
(Scott MacLeod is Middle East correspondent for Time Magazine based in Cairo.)
