AKEED, Wasfi Khushman

The losses incurred by Royal Jordanian (RJ) over the past year, amounting to 24.6 million dinars, have disappeared from the headlines of daily newspapers and a number of news websites as part of the coverage of media outlets of the meeting of the general assembly of the company, held on Sunday.

Newspapers and websites published a pre-prepared press release on the meeting, which was chaired by Aqel Biltaji, vice chairman of the RJ Board of Directors, and his statements during the meeting.  They also published the speech of Engineer Sa"id Darwazeh, chairman of the Board of Directors, which was distributed to shareholders.

Although profit and loss attract the press the most in any annual report for any company, the media failed to highlight RJ losses, whether in the headlines or the lead paragraph of the story about the meeting. Media outlets were content with keeping the original wording of the press release issued by RJ media officers, which included in the body RJ losses and their causes and its revenues for last year, compared with its revenues for the previous year.

Newspapers and websites on Monday were rife with news and advertisements, showing positive or negative economic indicators that emerged during meetings of the general assemblies of a number of companies and banks. 

The Jordanian Media Credibility Monitor (AKEED) observed that the Jordan News Agency (Petra) paraphrased the RJ press release, focusing on the amount of operational revenues of RJ last year and net profit, but it ignored the losses in the headline and the lead paragraph and kept it in the body of the report.

Al Rai newspaper highlighted news of the RJ meeting. It published a summary on page 1 headlined "RJ Contracts Major Companies To Lease Planes." It devoted half of page 2 of its economic supplement to the press release under the headline "Biltaji: RJ Long-Established Company and Has Key Strategic Role." 

This coverage included similar press releases with the following headlines: "Rawashdeh: Al Rai Printing Presses Incurred Big Losses; We Decided To Refer File to Public Prosecutor," "Arab Bank Group Posts Profit of 218.2 Million Dinars by End of First Quarter," "Potash Company Posts Profit of 26.3 Million Dinars by End of First Quarter," "Cairo Amman Bank Posts Profit of 49.9 Million Dinars for 2016," and "Jordan Commercial Bank Raises Capital to 120 Million Dinars."

As is the case with Al Rai, Al Dustour newspaper was content with the press release, but it used a headline highlighting revenues and net profit, like Petra. The first page of Al Dustour made no reference to the RJ losses despite the fact that news about the meeting occupied large space on page 3 of the economic supplement of the newspaper, surrounded by other news that highlights the profit of other companies and banks.

The same applies to Al Ghad newspaper, which was content with publishing the press release at the top of page 3 in its economic supplement under the headline "Biltaji: RJ Has Key Strategic Role in Serving Kingdom."

Al Anbat newspaper was no exception. It published the press release on page 2 of its second part under the headline "Biltaji: RJ Has Key Strategic Role in Serving Jordan and Is National Icon of State." As for Al Sabeel, its pages on Monday contained no reference to the meeting of the general assembly of RJ.

Some websites handled the RJ press release in the same manner followed by newspapers. They published it as received from RJ or published Petra"s paraphrase without intervention. Other sites handled it differently as some of them removed all the figures that indicated losses, while others carried a headline about the losses, but used a verb that usually describes profit, and kept the body of the press release as received from the source.

An Arab newspaper highlighted on its website the news about RJ"s losses, but it made a mistake when converting the value of the losses from dinar to dollar, while another newspaper turned RJ"s revenues into profit.

Salamah Diraawi, chief editor of the electronic newspaper Al Maqar and a journalist who is specialized in economic affairs, commented in a telephone call made with him by AKEED on the fact that local media outlets, particularly main newspapers and websites, ignored RJ losses. He expressed his belief that this is due to two reasons. The first is the "laziness of the journalist," whether he is a reporter or editor, in reading the press release issued by RJ, paraphrasing it, and highlighting its key points. The second reason is that RJ does not invite journalists who cover its news and activities to attend the general assembly meeting.

Diraawi said that had journalists attended the meeting, they would have taken note of the importance of the subject of losses. Besides, journalists would have received the annual report in full and read and analyzed it. He said that it is unlikely that the media faced advertising pressure by RJ to hide its losses, especially since RJ"s share of advertisements is not huge, like other companies.

According to the standards observed by AKEED, covering the losses of RJ lacked the answer to the "what" question, which pertains to mentioning the losses as the most important piece of information that came up during the meeting. This is in addition to monitored selectivity in the way media outlets handle companies and banks by focusing on profit and loss for some and ignoring them for others.