Category Media

Bogus Trends

Trend stories are some of my least favourite kind of stories in the media. Even worse, many of these trend stories tend to be bogus. “The bogus trend story thrives thanks to the journalists who never let the facts get in the way when they think they’ve discovered some new social tendency,” says Slate’s Jack Shafer.

It is said that one is an exception, two is a coincidence, but three is a trend. However, when it comes to Saudi Arabia and its infamous religious police two is more than enough to make a trend, apparently. During the last week, international media went crazy over two little stories about attacks on the members of Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (CPVPV) aka Haia.

haya_logo_inverseMany reporters who worked on these stories from abroad called their sources in the Kingdom asking them the same question: Does this incident (and later these two incidents) indicate a shift in attitude by the public towards the religious police? Regardless of the answers they got, they somehow came out with pieces along the line that Saudi people have had it and are finally rising up against Haia.

Sorry to disappoint you guys, but I really do not think this is the case. The talk about a revolt against Haia is a gross exaggeration. What these stories suggest is not an anti-Commission revolution but rather a change in the press. Few years ago these kind of stories won’t make headlines; now they do. Local media cannot be blamed for hyping up Haia stories because, well, they sell. It is outside observers and self-appointed experts that should be blamed for falling for bogus trends.

World Cup broadcast rights, GPYW grilled in Shoura

  • Broadcast rights of major sports events such as the World Cup used to be a hot topic for debate in the Arab World. Not anymore as most people here have grown accustomed to the realities of premium TV in the region. But something in this article from the New York Times caught my attention: “In many smaller European countries, public broadcasters still have a firm grip on the World Cup, under a collective agreement between FIFA, the governing body for the tournament, and the European Broadcasting Union, a group representing public broadcasters. A similar deal was signed between FIFA and the African Union of Broadcasters, providing viewers with free access to all the World Cup matches across much of sub-Saharan Africa.” Why this is not the case here? In the Middle East there is such a union. It’s called ASBU. Unfortunately for the people in this region, ASBU is too weak and has been subdued by private TV networks owned by individuals with close ties to Arab government. Go figure.
  • Speaking for the World Cup, Saudi Arabia did not make it to this year’s tournament for the first time since 1994. This failure to qualify and other local sports issues have been recently discussed in the Shoura Council. The General Presidency of Youth Welfare (GPYW) has come under strong criticism from Shoura members who questioned the performance of GPWY and how they spend their budget. I highly doubt this will change anything in that aging body, but I’m glad to see them getting kicked, even if it was merely symbolic.

Origin of Arab News, Saudi coed study

  • Arab News is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year. To commemorate the occasion, the newspaper has published a supplement that carried articles by many people, including one by Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi ambassador to the US and the UK. In his article, Prince Turki reveals that both Arab News and Asharq al-Awsat, the flagship publications of SRMG, were actually the brainchildren of himself, Kamal Adham, and Hisham Ali Hafiz. In other words, both newspapers were born at the offices of the Saudi intelligence agency.
  • A study on co-education at university level has been recently conducted. The study sample was comprised of 440 med students from KSU and KAU. 71% of them said they support co-education, compared to 29% who were against it. Makes you wonder about all those ‘majority’ arguments that some people like to bring up when discussing controversial issues in the country.

Street Terror

According to WHO, Saudi Arabia has the highest road accident death toll in the world. It is very rare that you will meet anyone here who has never lost a friend or a relative in a car accident. Inspired by the death of his cousin, Ala’a al-Maktoum aka McToom made this impressive video illustrating the magnitude of the problem. Check it out:

Khashoggi Resigns

Jamal Khashoggi has resigned from his position as editor in chief of al-Watan daily. The newspaper website has carried a brief item last night saying the resignation has been accepted, and the reason given was that Khashoggi wants to focus on his “personal projects.” The resignation comes less than two weeks after the progressive paper launched the latest iteration of its website. On the occasion, Khashoggi wrote an editorial proclaiming “Al-Watan is the new media,” which did not go well at all with many bloggers and online activists.

The reason offered here for the resignation is unconvincing, to say the least. People on Twitter and elsewhere have been speculating about the real reasons behind the sudden departure of Khashoggi, who has an interesting career in journalism including a short stint at the helm of al-Watan few years ago that lasted for only 52 days. Some people suggested that his resignation is just a step on his way to hold a new position at the new Alef Alef company, the broadcast arm of Aseer Media and Publishing company, which owns the newspaper. Alef Alef has recently won a license to start one of the first private FM radio stations in Saudi Arabia.

However, this explanation does not ring true to me. Neither what Fouad mentioned about this article by Ibrahim al-Almaai. It seems that Khaoggi was forced to resign, according to one source in the newspaper. This forced resignation is not the result of one article, but rather due to the accumulation of several articles, stories and other circumstances. “It could be that al-Almai’s article was just the straw that broke the camel’s back,” my source said.

Curiously, the resignation was accepted on Jamal Khashoggi’s wedding night.

Read more:

Sultan al-Qahtani’s newest crush, MOCI and their law

  • Elaph’s Sultan al-Qahtani has a piece on the increasing popularity of Qatar’s first lady Sheikha Mozah Al Missned. She has recently visited the country and met with King Abdullah. Apparently Saudi girls have a crush on her, hanging her posters on their walls and looking up to her as a role model. The Sheikha is popular, no question about it. My question is: does Sultan al-Qahtani have a crush on Karen Elliott House? The former foreign editor and publisher of WSJ is currently in Riyadh, working on a new book about Saudi Arabia. Al-Qahtani quotes House in his piece, saying when they met in Khozama Hotel her eyes were “beaming beauty and hope.” Al-Qahtani quotes three other women in the short article, including fellow blogger Sarah Matar, but he fails to mention anything about their eyes.
  • If you think that I have been overreacting to MOCI’s proposed plan to regulate the internet, go read this article by Iman al-Guwaifli. In the article, Iman quotes the aforementioned Abdulrahman al-Hazzaa saying the new regulation will include “all websites, blogs and forums.” Once the new law is enacted they plan to list all websites, and in the future they hope site owners will contact them before launching their websites. “Everybody will be given a chance to register, but the law will be enforced on everyone,” he said. Fouad is waiting for MOCI to come out with a clarification to what Iman wrote, but I doubt they will do such thing. MOCI just don’t get it.

Fouad is back, Why are we never ready?

  • My good friend and fellow blogger Fouad al-Farhan has finally decided to restart his blog after more than two years of hiatus. During these two years, he experimented with Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, but he eventually admitted that there is nothing like blogging as a platform for personal publishing. Fouad is one of the most prominent people in the Saudi blogosphere, and I’m sure the whole blogging community is delighted to have him writing at length again. Welcome back, Fouad! You have been missed.
  • Abdulrahman al-Hazzaa, deputy minister of information and culture, keeps pushing for MOCI’s proposed law for regulating news websites in this column for Okaz daily. His latest argument: we are not ready for the freedom offered by such websites. We’ve heard this argument before. Government officials like al-Hazzaa keep telling us that we are not ready for civil society, not ready for elections, not ready of democracy, etc. We are pretty much not ready for anything, until they say we are, which, depending on their whims, can be next decade, next century, or sometimes never.
  • A little housekeeping note: the short linky posts are open to comments again. When I redesigned the blog earlier this year, I decided to close comments on these posts as an experiment. As part of the experiment, all posts are open to comments now. Let’s see how that goes.