In his weekly column for Asharq Alawsat, Mshari Al-Zaydi talks about how new media—Facebook, the Internet, camera cell phones, etc.—have created a new force for accountability in government. He wonders whether this represents a fundamental change in the relationship between Saudi citizens and the state. I would answer with an emphatic ‘Yes!’

He recognizes that publicly-produced media provides a ‘cover’ for state-influenced media to report the facts, not the spin. It reflects popular anger and demands for accountability, neither of which generally get much space in Saudi media. That media, however, can point to photographs, videos, and first-person accounts to back up its reporters’ stories.

He cautions that the Internet can provide good and useful information, as it primarily is doing in this case, but that because it is unregulated, it can also provide false and self-serving disinformation. Telling the two apart is not always easy. Here, though, the overwhelming consistency of the images and reporting provide a background against which the disingenuous and agenda-driven reports stand out. They also provide a direct line between the people and the leaders, cutting out the bureaucratic middlemen who might seek to minimize the issue to protect their jobs and positions.

Al-Zaydi’s article is a good one, worth reading in full.

The Eyes of Jeddah
Mshari Al-Zaydi

Nothing is being discussed more these days in Saudi Arabia than the disaster of the Jeddah floods. This can be clearly seen in newspaper articles, front page headlines, and news reports. Key satellite television stations have covered the disaster, and continue to broadcast the latest developments. However the fastest and boldest medium being used in this media contest is the internet and social networking sites such as Facebook as well as internet forums and even SMS text messages. Video clips [of the disaster] are also being circulated by people, but these do not appear on television screens or in the newspapers.

We are facing an event that cannot be exclusively monopolized by any single media in its presentation to the public. This is why the Saudi media response [to the Jeddah floods] was unusually quick and intense. This all began a few years ago when journalists, reporters, and editors began to surf the internet themselves, opening personal accounts on Facebook and other sites, and contributing to internet forums. This is not to mention those who perhaps began to write on websites about Saudi affairs under pseudonyms.

… The only silver lining to this unfortunate tragedy is that it has caused the officials to realize that they are under public scrutiny. The officials are now aware that there are eyes that see, ears that hear, hands that write, tongues that talk, and more importantly cameras that record events and broadcast them to the world.

This feeling of being monitored by the public is useful and inevitable. Without public scrutiny it is impossible [for officials] to maintain a good and productive performance. This does not discredit the intentions of public officials, but rather this is the correct recipe for a healthy and productive [public] environment. With public scrutiny, the task of the official is to prove himself and his administration to the public, and improve the limitations of his performance. Since no man is infallible, and since officials are human by nature, and because the impacts of their mistakes goes beyond them and affects other people’s interests, there should have been safeguards in place to prevent such mistakes from happening, along with a mechanism for punishment and reward, and the monitoring of [official's] performance.
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