Media freedom and standards hit the wall

There's an outspoken column in Gulf News today about the state of the media in the UAE.

Abu Dhabi Editor Abdullah Rasheed doesn't mince his words, giving a real serve to a whole range of people and organisations.

It's quite a piece.

The heading is "The ceiling of press freedom in UAE is falling"

The thrust of the column is that "Press freedom is deteriorating and freedom of expression is in increasing danger" and he points the finger at those he believes responsible.

He includes the Federal National Council, the National Media Council, which he says are both guilty of not protecting journalists, laws and government/official bodies are criticised, he's particularly harsh on media owners and managers, and he says that journalists are not doing their job.

Here's a flavour of what he says:

"At long last, the Federal National Council (FNC) will finally hold a session [today] to discuss the media, having postponed four consecutive sessions for no apparent reason.

It is no secret that one of the main obstacles facing the media and journalists is the total inability of the FNC to protect journalists from the mistreatment they face.

Our newspapers are hardly given the freedom to tackle most issues and bring to light social, political, economic and even sports stories.

There isn't enough protection provided to journalists and self-censorship is practised by our newspapers to avoid angering official bodies and to please the government.

Adding to their woes, journalists battle to get even the simplest information due to the non-co-operation of most official bodies which is another issue that the NMC did nothing about. On this issue, the NMC has taken the side of the government bodies, as if it is totally unconcerned with media affairs.

No official is ready to respond to a journalist, and no spokesperson provides information for any ministry or government body. The title of official spokesperson means nothing, because the spokesperson thinks he is a high-ranking official and that journalists are inferior to him, and accordingly declines to co-operate with them."

Newspapers aren't spared, from top to bottom:

"Journalists are no longer doing their duty, meaning that the press is no longer monitoring the performance of government.

Some newspapers even indulge in hypocrisy to please officials and the bodies they represent, and there is also full subordination to advertisers.

Mismanagement and confusion abound in most media outlets, as a result of the lack of experience of the people running them, from editors to editors-in-chief.

Some newspapers are run by people who care only about their own interests, at the expense of the public interest."

He talks about the pointlessness of it, given our access to the internet and all the news that it contains. And how in view of that we need a strong independent media here to discuss the issues facing the country. He also complains about the decreasing number of Emirati journalists.

It's by far the strongest piece I've seen on the standard of journalism, the incompetence of media companies, the lack of transparency from government, the lack of media freedom.

I'd be interested to know if anything similar is appearing in the Arabic media.



Read the full column here.