Saudi Gazette report

DAMMAM — Saudi Arabia has 660 electronic newspapers while there are only 13 print newspapers in the country, according to the General Authority for Statistics (GaStat).

According to GaStat, 757 electronic newspapers were licensed by the Ministry of Media in 2016 but their number has come down to 660.

There were 14 print newspapers in 2016, but one of them closed down later, bringing their number down to 13, the Makkah newspaper reported quoting GaStat.

Chairman of the Saudi Journalists Association Khaled Al-Malik, who is editor in chief of Al-Jazirah daily newspaper, expected the government to intervene and rescue the print media.

The print newspapers represent only 1.9 percent of the Saudi media but industry sources believe that they are still preserving their credibility and professionalism among readers.

The electronic media mushroomed in a record short time and have attracted new readership, especially among the young people.

Al-Malik is certain that the print media are still maintaining their strong impact on the readers thanks to their credibility and long history.

"The print newspapers continue to be a reliable source of information for TV stations and electronic media," he said.

Al-Malik, however, admitted that the circulation of the print newspapers has gone down drastically and the content has weakened due to adverse financial conditions.

He warned that the print media would not be able to continue or face the challenges of bankruptcy unless they restructure themselves and rationalize spending.

"We are expecting government support to enable the print media to survive; otherwise the consequences will be grave," he said.

Hassan Al-Somaili, undersecretary of the College of Information and Communications at Imam Muhammad Bin Saud University, is of the opinion that the print media is regressing due to a number of factors even though some of them still have an impact on the readers.

"Some of the digital newspapers have become more influential and more widely read than the print media," he said.

Somaili believes that the restrictions imposed by the Ministry of Media on the print newspapers are more rigid than those on digital newspapers.

"The print newspapers give greater attention to credibility, authenticate their reports and do a better editing job instead of quickly publishing them. This is the reason why the electronic newspapers are often able to beat them," he said.

Somaili said the focus of electronic newspapers is to publish the news quickly before others rather than waiting to authenticate the information.

"Digital newspapers are replete with grammatical and spelling mistakes. Their data is often not accurate and their editing is weak," he said.

According to Somaili, the electronic media suffer from a lack of experienced field journalists who are willing dig for news.

"Digital newspapers do not care much about editing, take their news from unreliable sources and plagiarize," he added.