Al-Arabiya changes

Al-Arabiya has announced the appointment of Daoud Shriyan as its new deputy director.  This is very interesting.   I wrote recently about the "Saudi-ization" of al-Arabiya over the last year and a half, as it has cut back on live talk shows and more closely followed the official Saudi foreign policy line.  But Shriyan comes from the Saudi-owned but Lebanese-dominated al-Hayat, not from the Saudi-to-the-core al-Sharq al-Awsat (like director Abd al-Rahman al-Rashed).  Shriyan hosted a decent talk show of his own on Dubai TV, and may be more open to such programs.   His writings reflect a far more Arab nationalist line than we've seen from al-Arabiya in years - an al-Jazeera sensibility, not an al-Arabiya one as it has evolved  in the last year or so.   Since Rashed is not known as a hand-on manager, Shriyan may well put a serious imprint on al-Arabiya and shift it back into more of a competitor with al-Jazeera.  This may reflect a rethinking of the Saudi-ization strategy due to its declining performance in many Arab markets, particularly during the Israel-Lebanon war. Or not - it's hard to say for sure at this point, but I'll let you know if and when I get something more concrete.

If al-Arabiya does go that route, it may have some implications for American public diplomacy.   Al-Arabiya has become what al-Hurra was meant to be, a generally pro-American Arab TV station with a substantial audience, and was rewarded by becoming the outlet of choice for American officials willing to talk to Arab TV.  If al-Arabiya were to shift in a more al-Jazeera-ish direction, where will they go to get their message out?  The new al-Hurra?  (Or, perhaps, Animal Planet?)   All speculation at this point, but worth paying attention to for Arab media and US public diplomacy analysts.

Comments

[Gregory Gause]

I am not sure I agree with the idea that Daoud Shiryan is an "al-Jazira type." First, he is not reflexively anti-Saudi (how could he be if al-Arabiyya hired him?). He is a critical voice about elements of Saudi society more than the Saudi government. He originally lost his column in al-Hayat because he was critical of the salafi activists and elements of the religious establishment (has been back recently on the editorial page, though infrequently). He has taken something of an Arab nationalist line on the Lebanon conflict of this summer, but not overly so, at least in my reading. He was critical of Hizballah's strategic choices, while also being critical of Arab state responses (and, of course, critical of Israel). I think he is a really interesting guy, not afraid to speak his mind about what is going on inside Saudi Arabia, but will not be directly critical (at least on a regular basis) of the Saudi government. In all, a good hire, given the constraints.

[the aardvark]

Oh, I agree that he's a good hire, all things considered - maybe that wasn't clear. A shift from al-Sharq al-Awsat to al-Hayat is still within the Saudi orbit, but definitely a change from the way al-Arabiya had been going.

[Yohan]

As long as the Saudi royal family holds the purse strings, they could hire Noam Chompsky as deputy director and it wouldn't make much difference. Also, the traditional reaction of the American and Saudi governments to pushback on their narratives is not to change the meaning of the narrative, but rather to tweak the presentation of the message under the theory that if you put enough lipstick on a pig the Muslims will eventually "get it" and start loving bacon. I see an attempt at rebranding the same old product before I see a real change. They bring in someone from the other side of their narrow spectrum in an effort to better market the same Saudi party line to a skeptical public.

This is like Bush hiring James Baker to do a fact finding mission in Iraq. He may be on the opposite end of the acceptable Republican spectrum from Bush, but that spectrum is so narrow that it doesn't matter, the conclusions will be the required ones.

But who knows, the Saudis aren't exactly known for having deeply held convictions, aside from their steadfast commitment to staying in power.