JEDDAH, 27 July 2007 — A group of media personnel gathered here this week to discuss the state of the media in the Kingdom. This nongovernmental effort by media people in Saudi Arabia, along with the US-based international organization IREX, aimed at creating the second so-called Media Sustainability Index, or MSI, for Saudi Arabia.
The MSI is a survey by IREX regarding the state of press freedom and other issues pertaining to the freedom of information in different regions of the world. In 2005 the survey was created for the MENA (Middle East/North Africa) region.
Saudi Arabia was one of 14 countries in the MENA region that was included in the survey. The survey entails a series of issues and rates the condition of these subjects on a scale of one to four.
Subjects that were rated included legal protections that encourage freedom of information and expression, journalistic work ethics and the plurality of perspectives offered in the local press. Saudi Arabia’s total score was 2.04 out of four.
The rankings were determined in part through the representatives of the local Saudi media. Journalist Maha Akeel (who has been a reporter and continues to write occasionally for Arab News) moderated the event.
Media representatives that provided input on the MSI survey included: Badr Al-Motawa, deputy managing editor of Al-Hayat newspaper; ART TV broadcaster Kamal Abdul Qader; Al Madinah newspaper journalist Manal Al-Sharif; Hasan Baswaid, journalist at Okaz daily; and Halima Mozffar, Al-Watan newspaper columnist.
Participants of the event spoke frankly about some of the major problems with the development of a professional code of journalistic ethics. They also criticized the official Saudi Society of Journalists for being what they called a nonparticipant in protecting Saudi reporter’s rights. Journalism training is also a problem: there are no journalism schools in the Kingdom. “I have been working in the media for about 25 years now and I have never been offered a single training course by the different newspapers I’ve worked with,” said TV broadcaster Qader. “I learned on the job.”
Access to information, even basic information was also a hot subject of debate.
“This is a major obstacle (in Saudi Arabia) and the score in this regard deserves double zeros,” said Al-Motawa.
Participants pointed out that government statistics are hard to come by and it is still often considered a privilege of having the proper government connections to be granted access to even the most basic information, such as crime or health statistics.
Police departments do not easily provide the most basic information, such as statistics about the number of accidents reported on the roads, and the information, if available often involves numerous phone calls and great efforts on the part of journalists.
A newspaper reporter can end up holding a story for days trying to contact public official whose job is supposed to involve being available for speaking to the press.
And when an official does respond, he wants questions in writing and the answers can take up to a months to return, if at all. And if the reporter chooses to move forward and write the story without the official’s comments, he or she risks being accused later (if the story has a controversial or critical quality) of not getting the other side of the story.
The outcome of the MSI will be published in IREX website and will be available to the public for download. Last year the first Saudi MSI run by IREX was done in Riyadh. According to Riyadh participants, free speech in Saudi Arabia received 1.78 out of four and the lowest score went to the availability of institutions to support freedom of the press: 1.70.
