[7] Al Watan was initially established as a small regional newspaper, eventually becoming one of the top three Arabic dailies in the Kingdom (ranked by IPSOS and PARC).

The 48-pages of the new edition published in broadsheet format cover in depth Saudi affairs with a wide range of feature stories, news, analysis, lifestyle and reports.

[9][10] During the tenure of Jamal Khashoggi as editor-in-chief, Al Watan columnists aggressively poked at the contradictions and oppressive effects of Saudi Islam, especially with regard to women.

[5] Current editor-in-chief of the paper is Talal Al Sheik who is also a member in board of directors of Saudi Journalists Association (SJA).

[15] Mahmoud Trawri, a former literary editor of Al Watan, won the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity for his first novel Maimouna in 2001.

Late Interior Minister Prince Nayef, who effectively controlled the press in Saudi Arabia, clearly showed his distaste for the new discussions taking place.

[19] As a result of its progressive approach, religious conservatives began to call Al Watan Al-Wathan, which means "the idol" in Arabic.

Al Ghamdi was fired after a report described poor living conditions for Interior Ministry soldiers deployed to Mecca for the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

Specifically, after a week of intense debate following the bombings of three Riyadh housing complexes in May 2003, an Al Watan journalist asked the minister of interior, Nayef, if the attacks meant that the mutaween would be restructured.

The column by al Almaee challenged the Salafists' rejection of popular religious traditions such as patronising shrines and graves of important Islamic figures.

[32] Al Watan provides extensive but uncritical coverage of local news in addition to the usual positive reporting on the activities of the ruling family and the government.

He also pointed out that the Kingdom's religious scholars 'have to declare jihad against those deviants and to fully support it, as those who keep silent about the truth are mute devils".

[26] He further argued that religious fighters operating inside the kingdom should be "vanquished" the way "King Abdul Aziz did at the Battle of Al Sabla [in 1929]".

[33] Majed Garoub, the head of the Jeddah lawyers' committee, in three articles published in Al Watan in the period of May–June 2010, called for the adoption of certain measures against domestic violence.

[34] On 8 June 2010, Al Watan published a story about the religious police entering a woman's flat after midnight in the Fahd neighbourhood of Najran without apparent cause two days earlier.

[34] In August 2013, an editorial of the paper stated that a foreign military strike against Syria due to civil war in the country was inevitable whatever its form would be.