A CALIFORNIA EDITOR IN JEDDAH
Until recently, Rob Wagner was features editor at The Stockton Record. A week ago he started work as managing editor on Saudi Arabia's English language Saudi Gazette. His first report is not encouraging, though not terribly suprising:
I work 12-hour days, six days a week, and the paper is very unorganized. Reporters are pretty lazy and it's difficult to get work out of them. I'm trying to organize the national desk and get people to produce work. It's quite a job and I haven't had an opportunity to get out around town as much as I would like.
Part of the problem is the Saudi culture. People work from 9 a.m. to noon, do prayers, have lunch, take a nap, then return to work at 4 p.m. And work until 5. The mantra here is anything you can do today can be put off until tomorrow.
There are about five nationalities in the newsroom -- Saudi, Pakistani, Indian, Jordanian, American and a few others I can't identify. Understanding each other is a little difficult. And if you thought newsroom politics can be bad, just imagine a similar situation here, but with newspeople from five different countries trying to get along.
The women reporters work in a separate room on a different floor. I can only communicate with them by phone or e-mail. I'm not sure what the big deal is since they wear full black abayas. The other day I needed to give one of the women a news clipping. She had to go down to the lobby and I had a teaboy -- yes, we have teaboys -- deliver it to her. Teaboys are great, by the way, serving me tea, coffee and what-not at any given moment. They are very class and status-minded here. No need for these poor fellas -- all Indian -- but the Saudis insist that we should have teaboys. There must be about 10 of them on staff here.
The writing is extraordinarily bad. We have Saudis, Indians and Jordanians translating Arabic into English with that very formal, stilted, wordy way of talking. Nothing is conversational here in the writing. I spend a lot of time in rewrite. Teaching reporters to streamline their writing may indeed be impossible simply because they don't naturally form their thoughts as a native English speaker does.
Bush is hated here with a passion. A passion that borders on real fear. Saudis are completely mystified with Bush's foreign policy. And his recent shift over the Israeli issue is sending folks in the Middle East through the roof. I may be overstating things, but it's a real powder keg here. Peace in Iraq or a return to normal relations with any Middle Eastern country is remote at best. This is a long haul kind of thing. Things will get much worse before they get better. Then again I've only been here a week, so what do I know?
(Via L.A Observed.)