A great bonus of the Internet is that it has expanded the readership of Arab News to an international audience, as can be seen by the numerous letters from readers around the globe. Many of them have spent time in Saudi Arabia.

Recently in London, I spoke to Tony Nagle, a retired Saudi Arabian Airlines captain. He responded enthusiastically about his morning sessions on the Internet, reading Arab News and catching up with news of Saudia Arabia.

Nagle, an Irishman born and raised in Zimbabwe, arrived in Jeddah in 1977 to fly for Saudia and stayed with the company until he retired in 1995. During his time in Jeddah, he read Arab News daily, as well as reading whatever other English-language publications he could find. “I read the paper from cover to cover as I felt it reflected the mindset of the country in which I was working,” Nagle said.

His opinion of the international news during his time in Jeddah was that it was “adequate.” “Censorship was obvious to the Westerner,” Nagle said. “In areas which were not affected by religious interpretation or the Palestine-Israel situation, it was, however, generally objective to me.”

Nagle is well-traveled and well-read and something of an unprofessed journalist himself. During his time in Saudi Arabia, he kept a daily journal, which included cuttings from Arab News. He said that reading through the journal all these years later is a strange experience, rather like reading about someone else’s life.

With the advent of broadband Internet connections, Nagle said it’s very easy to read papers on the Internet, and he reads foreign English-language papers on a daily basis.

“I normally read everything that is put on the Internet by Arab News,” he said. “I reply to some of the writers when I feel I have a sufficiently strong contrary point of view.”

I asked him how he compared Arab News with some of the British newspapers.

“Now that it is opening its pages to debate on so many subjects, it compares very well,” he said. “The quality of some of the articles is outstanding. I forward them to friends around the world, to people who are aware of the interdependence of nations of import, and, consequently, they are very interested in the internal structure and thinking of Saudi society. While there is a very wide spectrum in the British papers, they obviously operate under much greater freedom than Arab News. The British broadsheets are governed by the law of libel and court procedure but otherwise can establish their own rules of what can be published in the public interest, and nothing is sacred, as the monarchy and the government know to their cost.”

He has continued to read Arab News because of his personal interest in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, which began before he went to work there.

“I had read several books by early explorers from England in Arabia, but primarily my interest grew from the years I lived there,” Nagle said. “However, as a Christian and a foreigner, one felt marginalized and became very analytical of the Islamic culture and the system of government.”

Before his career as an airline pilot, he had worked for the Ministry of External Affairs for the Federal Government of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, thus developing an inside interest in politics and government.

Since he has left Saudi Arabia, he said there has been enormous progress in the content of Arab News. “Indeed, it has changed over the years, and I would say that the paper has evolved into a paper that can be read for information and opinion in Saudi Arabia by anyone seriously interested in the KSA of today. Many of the articles I read these days would never have been published 10 years ago,” he said. “There is much more debate and contrary opinion expressed in print today. However, I would like to read more features which contain humor or satire — a few more articles, which make fun reading.”

He also said he hopes that more Saudis will make use of the letter-writing forum in the future.

“It would be interesting to see more letters written by the general public of Saudi Arabia,” Nagle said. “This would be an indication that the ordinary people were participating in public debate rather than an intellectual elite. Consequently, it would reveal grassroots concern and criticism, to which the political authority would perhaps respond.”