Report: Saudi Officials Give Rolexes to Journalists

By: Allan Wolper Two prominent Arab journalists based in London have confirmed a New York Daily News column alleging that Saudi Arabian officials have given expensive watches, including Rolexes, to Western reporters.

The Arab newsmen did not identify any of the reporters who might have accepted the gifts, and neither did Zev Chafets, the columnist who made the allegations on Dec. 4. And American journalists who were in the Middle East recently said that no Saudi official offered them anything.

But Chafets insisted in his column and in an interview afterward that the watch-giving is a time-honored device to win favorable press coverage for the Saudi government. "Are [journalists] influenced by Saudi hospitality?" he asked in his column. "Look at the coverage of the kingdom the last 10 years and see which reporters failed to notice they were in a fascist theocracy and decide for yourself."

However, the Saudi journalists interviewed by E&P don't believe the gifts have any strings attached to them. "It is a common thing," said Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor in chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi, an Arabic-language daily newspaper, in a telephone interview from London. "It is not considered a bribe in the Middle East," he explained. "In the Arab world, it is a way of being generous."

Atwan noted that expensive gifts can cause headaches for Western journalists because Rolex watches, costing as much as $20,000, would have to be declared at customs-service checkpoints. "It certainly is a problem for a reporter," he joked. "You can't sell them, and you can't wear them." Of course, he added, "Some journalists decline the watches, and some accept them."

Jihad al-Khazen, editor in chief of a joint news project of Al-Hayat, an Arabic-language daily, and the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp., declared, "All journalists who go there, they all receive Swiss watches, Rolex watches." In fact, he added in a telephone interview from Beirut, "If they like you, sometimes they give you his-and-her watches. It's been going on since I was a child. ... If you don't take the watches, they feel insulted. There is a saying in Arabic that the presents of kings cannot be refused."

But it appears that the Saudis are being discreet about who gets their gifts. Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, who just returned from Saudi Arabia, told E&P that no one had offered him anything. And Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Timesman who is the most visible of the Middle East correspondents, said through his Washington assistant that he knew nothing about the watch-giving.

Edward Cody, a journalist at The Washington Post who has covered the Middle East for 30 years, said he believed that the serious gift-giving ended in the early 1970s. "When we first started covering Saudi Arabia, it was a practice to accept a gift and give equal value in return," Cody said.

Chafets, however, told E&P that he wrote his column because he knew the Saudis were still handing out watches. Cody said that even if some journalists do take the gifts, it shouldn't reflect on the great majority of journalists who reject the Saudi offerings. "I am sure some are given," he said, "and some are accepted."