The story broke in the UK press a couple of weeks ago and I've been meaning to post this for a while, but being busy with the imminent move back to Oz I didn't get around to it.
It's been somewhat swamped by the Murdoch News of the World saga but it involves much the same thing, appalling standards of 'journalism'.
I'm prompted to devote time to it today by an article in this morning's The National.
It concerns Johann Hari, a columnist I've disliked for a long time and who I've slated here before, and his standards of 'journalism'. You'll remember Mr Hari for his infamous article 'The Dark Side of Dubai' written over two years ago now.
He's at last been publicly exposed for something that was apparent from that and other articles; misrepresention, misquoting and making up 'facts' to make a point.
Hari admitted exactly that when in response to the criticisms he said he had opted for "intellectual accuracy" over "reportorial accuracy".
He has quite rightly been suspended by his newspaper, The Independent, and calls are being made for his various awards for journalism to be taken back. One committee is said to be actively investigating their award to him.
The National quotes Bitish author and columnist Guy Walters as saying Hari has committed three journalistic crimes: "First, he has pretended that words spoken to other journalists were in fact said to him. That is plagiarism, pure and simple. Secondly, he makes things up. There is no doubt in my mind that many of the people he supposedly encounters - such as the girl in hot pants in Dubai - are figments of his imagination. Thirdly, he distorts the words of the real people he does manage to interview."
Certainly the second and third apply to his Dubai article, as I pointed out in my detailed response to it.
That was back in April 2009 and it's interesting that I still regularly get visitors landing on that page.
The times when news went into the bin at the end of the day have disappeared, now it stays here on the www for people to read forever. This is an example - various commentators reporting Hari's attack on Dubai linked to it and to my response, and now more than two years later people are still reading both.
Now that he's been exposed I think there's a good argument for The Independent to remove the links to any of his articles which have been called into question for containing plagiarism, lies, distortions.
I would also suggest that those of us who took him to task over his Dubai article and follow-up, and who took a lot of stick at the time from his supporters, have been exonerated.
The Dark Side of Dubai.
My post disecting it
More lies from Johann Hari.
The National.
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Friday, July 22, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
They don't get it.
The News Corp phone hacking saga continues like a runaway train.
Actually, to my mind it's not about phone hacking, although it did start when the public discovered that the News of the World hacked into the phones of people other than celebrities. That meant the illegality which had been accepted for years was suddenly an outrage.
And although it's called the phone hacking scandal, the real story is corruption.
The UK has long prided itself on being corruption free. It can't any more. Media, politicians, police all scratching each others' backs with secret deals, payoffs, freebies, exchanges of confidential information.
Politicians playing for Murdoch's media support. And in return he expected...?
A relationship between police and Murdoch's empire that included police being paid for information.
Former executives from the NoW being given well- paid jobs with the police and government.
The original enquiry finding no problem other than a couple of minor underlings, who went to jail, and the enquiry being closed with unseemly haste.
And so it was back to business as usual.
But every day sees more sensational developments. It's not just underlings taking the rap any more, big names are beginning to fall.
The latest is the top cop, Sir Paul Stephenson, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who resigned yesterday.
There were a number of pressures on him but the one that to me is the biggest is that he accepted a gift of thousands of pounds of free health spa accommodation.
It doesn't matter who the owners were, who arranged it, whether it had anything to do with Murdoch.
The problem is the nation's top policeman accepted a valuable gift from someone.
At the very best it shows appalling judgement and naivete.
And like others being outed in this drama, he just doesn't get it.
Here's what he said:
Sir Paul insisted there was "no impropriety" in relation to his use of the spa. He said: "I am extremely happy with what I did and the reasons for it — to do everything possible to return to running the Met full time, significantly ahead of medical, family and friends’ advice. The attempt to represent this in a negative way is both cynical and disappointing."
See, accepting gifts is perfectly OK for senior police officers. There is such a thing as free lunch. People will give them gifts worth thousands of pounds and never even think of wanting a favour in return.
Just watch it, this story will grow like a snowball because it's becoming a really dirty fight. People involved are looking to deflect dirt from themselves by naming others, people are settling old scores, good friends are hurriedly being dropped, there's a mad a scramble as people scurry to put distance between themselves and News Corp. And of course, anti-News Corp forces, including media rivals, are throwing fuel on the fire.
There are widespread reports of Sir Paul's dig at the Prime Minister who he said risked being compromised by his closeness to former News of the World editor Andy Coulson.
And, naturally, not for himself did Sir Paul kept secret his relationship with and employment of Caulson's former deputy Neil Wallis as a 'strategic adviser'. No, that was to protect others: "I did not want to compromise the prime minister in any way by revealing or discussing a potential suspect who clearly had a close relationship with Mr Coulson."
Very senior people, including long-standing friends of Rupert Murdoch, have gone and are among those arrested. The top cop has gone and his deputy should be next.* The opposition is baying for government blood.
They'll make a movie of it one day.
Quotes are from:
Sir Paul turns on PM. The Guardian.
Daily Telegraph.
* Breaking News
It's ninety minutes after I posted this and the Assistant Commissioner has just resigned. Things are moving faster than we can keep up with.
Actually, to my mind it's not about phone hacking, although it did start when the public discovered that the News of the World hacked into the phones of people other than celebrities. That meant the illegality which had been accepted for years was suddenly an outrage.
And although it's called the phone hacking scandal, the real story is corruption.
The UK has long prided itself on being corruption free. It can't any more. Media, politicians, police all scratching each others' backs with secret deals, payoffs, freebies, exchanges of confidential information.
Politicians playing for Murdoch's media support. And in return he expected...?
A relationship between police and Murdoch's empire that included police being paid for information.
Former executives from the NoW being given well- paid jobs with the police and government.
The original enquiry finding no problem other than a couple of minor underlings, who went to jail, and the enquiry being closed with unseemly haste.
And so it was back to business as usual.
But every day sees more sensational developments. It's not just underlings taking the rap any more, big names are beginning to fall.
The latest is the top cop, Sir Paul Stephenson, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who resigned yesterday.
There were a number of pressures on him but the one that to me is the biggest is that he accepted a gift of thousands of pounds of free health spa accommodation.
It doesn't matter who the owners were, who arranged it, whether it had anything to do with Murdoch.
The problem is the nation's top policeman accepted a valuable gift from someone.
At the very best it shows appalling judgement and naivete.
And like others being outed in this drama, he just doesn't get it.
Here's what he said:
Sir Paul insisted there was "no impropriety" in relation to his use of the spa. He said: "I am extremely happy with what I did and the reasons for it — to do everything possible to return to running the Met full time, significantly ahead of medical, family and friends’ advice. The attempt to represent this in a negative way is both cynical and disappointing."
See, accepting gifts is perfectly OK for senior police officers. There is such a thing as free lunch. People will give them gifts worth thousands of pounds and never even think of wanting a favour in return.
Just watch it, this story will grow like a snowball because it's becoming a really dirty fight. People involved are looking to deflect dirt from themselves by naming others, people are settling old scores, good friends are hurriedly being dropped, there's a mad a scramble as people scurry to put distance between themselves and News Corp. And of course, anti-News Corp forces, including media rivals, are throwing fuel on the fire.
There are widespread reports of Sir Paul's dig at the Prime Minister who he said risked being compromised by his closeness to former News of the World editor Andy Coulson.
And, naturally, not for himself did Sir Paul kept secret his relationship with and employment of Caulson's former deputy Neil Wallis as a 'strategic adviser'. No, that was to protect others: "I did not want to compromise the prime minister in any way by revealing or discussing a potential suspect who clearly had a close relationship with Mr Coulson."
Very senior people, including long-standing friends of Rupert Murdoch, have gone and are among those arrested. The top cop has gone and his deputy should be next.* The opposition is baying for government blood.
They'll make a movie of it one day.
Quotes are from:
Sir Paul turns on PM. The Guardian.
Daily Telegraph.
* Breaking News
It's ninety minutes after I posted this and the Assistant Commissioner has just resigned. Things are moving faster than we can keep up with.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Power tends to corrupt...
So said Lord Acton back in the eighteen eighties.
Very relevant to the momentous events going on in the UK surrounding Rupert Murdoch's brand of 'journalism' I would say.
Another saying that springs to mind is 'one law for the rich, one for the poor', but this one is happening in reverse from the usual meaning.
The hypocrisy of the general public is never more evident than in the Murdoch saga.
He's made his squillons and gained his power & influence by feeding the public obsession with gossip and personal details about people's private lives, the more dirt-raking the better. His papers are as downmarket as you can get, with even the once internationally respected The Times and Sunday Times going on a rapid downward spiral when he took them over.
The public's insatiable appetite for dross gave tabloid rags like The Sun and the News of the World the highest readership in the UK. In Australia it's the same with his tabloids versus the broadsheets.
Then the hypocrisy. As long as the gossip and lurid details were about royalty, footballers, politicians and 'celebrities' the illegal means of obtaining the information were not questioned.
But when exactly the same methods were used against ordinary people - an uprising.
It's not the unprofessional, immoral, illegal actions which have caused such outrage. It's who the victims are this time.
They won't of course, but people should take a long hard look at themselves for accepting illegal practices when they were used against well-known people. That's encouraged the practitioners to see their illegal, immoral actions as normal practice, happily accepted by the public.
Then there's the side to this saga that will be society changing.
When the Dirty Digger, as Private Eye* famously dubbed him, bought into the UK's newspaper world he was a breath of fresh air. He challenged the establishment, as very few did in those days, and broke the print unions which were killing the hand that fed them. (I had personal experience of them when I worked in London ad agencies).
But as his influence with the public - read voters - increased so did his interference in politics. Now there is evidence not only of his power to influence the highest levels of government but of his organisation's illegal activity in phone hacking, fraudulently obtaining personal information ('blagging') and bribery of police.
The mutual back-scratching of News Corp., politicians and the police isn't new but it's reached new depths.
No-one knows how much more there is to discover. Was it confined to the now thankfully defunct News of the World? (Always a dreadful example of tabloid 'journalism'). Was it even confined to the UK? The FBI in the US is looking into alleged breaches of US law. In Australia, where his empire began and where he owns nearly two thirds of big city newspapers, MPs are calling for an inquiry into media regulation.
This time News Corp won't be able to sweep it under the carpet as they did earlier, sacrificing a couple of, albiet guilty, fall guys. I've always maintained that the culture of an organisation is set at the very top. Underlings do what they believe the boss will be happy with, often what the boss indicates he'll be happy with.
To make matter worse, far from making a couple of minor mistakes in handling the crisis, as Murdoch told the (his) Wall Street Journal they'd done, he's made uncharacteristically massive errors. Maybe he's simply lost the plot. But I suspect it's more that the years of increasing power and influence have made him overconfident about what he can get away with. Arrogance and treating people with disdain aren't cutting it any more.
It needed an immediate admission that the practices were totally unacceptable. An immediate apology and promise that he was on his way to sort it out and hold those responsible, right to the top, to account. An urgent personal apology to the family of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler, the hacking of whose phone started the public outrage.
He should not have refused to attend the parliamentary hearing - a bad decision since reversed only as he realised the severity of the storm and threats of a summons to appear were made.
He should have immediately dropped his bid to buy the whole of BSkyB, 'pending the outcome of the current investigations'. Instead he tried to remove it from the political arena by having it referred to the competion watchdog, then had to withdraw the bid anyway. Calls are now being made to consider whether News should be allowed to retain its existing 39% holding.
All in all, mistake piled on mistake. As I said, out of character and massively damaging to the empire. Perhaps even fatal to it in its present form.
It will certainly lead in the UK to a formal distancing between media proprietors and politicians and between the media and police. Perhaps a new media regulator, maybe no more self regulation. More attention will be paid to the meaning of a 'fit and proper' person in relation to media owners. Quite possibly stronger regulations about the percentage of media one person can control.
Very senior people are going to be held responsible for their actions and lose their jobs - instead of the usual platitude of 'I take full responsibility' with absolutely nothing happening thereafter.
And much more transparency all round.
It's a big, big story and, as they say, it has legs. And there'll be more sensational revelations as it evolves.
* Private Eye covers are consistently brilliant. Do have a look at their website, click on 'Covers Library' and search Rupert Murdoch for example.
Very relevant to the momentous events going on in the UK surrounding Rupert Murdoch's brand of 'journalism' I would say.
Another saying that springs to mind is 'one law for the rich, one for the poor', but this one is happening in reverse from the usual meaning.
The hypocrisy of the general public is never more evident than in the Murdoch saga.
He's made his squillons and gained his power & influence by feeding the public obsession with gossip and personal details about people's private lives, the more dirt-raking the better. His papers are as downmarket as you can get, with even the once internationally respected The Times and Sunday Times going on a rapid downward spiral when he took them over.
The public's insatiable appetite for dross gave tabloid rags like The Sun and the News of the World the highest readership in the UK. In Australia it's the same with his tabloids versus the broadsheets.
Then the hypocrisy. As long as the gossip and lurid details were about royalty, footballers, politicians and 'celebrities' the illegal means of obtaining the information were not questioned.
But when exactly the same methods were used against ordinary people - an uprising.
It's not the unprofessional, immoral, illegal actions which have caused such outrage. It's who the victims are this time.
They won't of course, but people should take a long hard look at themselves for accepting illegal practices when they were used against well-known people. That's encouraged the practitioners to see their illegal, immoral actions as normal practice, happily accepted by the public.
Then there's the side to this saga that will be society changing.
When the Dirty Digger, as Private Eye* famously dubbed him, bought into the UK's newspaper world he was a breath of fresh air. He challenged the establishment, as very few did in those days, and broke the print unions which were killing the hand that fed them. (I had personal experience of them when I worked in London ad agencies).
But as his influence with the public - read voters - increased so did his interference in politics. Now there is evidence not only of his power to influence the highest levels of government but of his organisation's illegal activity in phone hacking, fraudulently obtaining personal information ('blagging') and bribery of police.
The mutual back-scratching of News Corp., politicians and the police isn't new but it's reached new depths.
No-one knows how much more there is to discover. Was it confined to the now thankfully defunct News of the World? (Always a dreadful example of tabloid 'journalism'). Was it even confined to the UK? The FBI in the US is looking into alleged breaches of US law. In Australia, where his empire began and where he owns nearly two thirds of big city newspapers, MPs are calling for an inquiry into media regulation.
This time News Corp won't be able to sweep it under the carpet as they did earlier, sacrificing a couple of, albiet guilty, fall guys. I've always maintained that the culture of an organisation is set at the very top. Underlings do what they believe the boss will be happy with, often what the boss indicates he'll be happy with.
To make matter worse, far from making a couple of minor mistakes in handling the crisis, as Murdoch told the (his) Wall Street Journal they'd done, he's made uncharacteristically massive errors. Maybe he's simply lost the plot. But I suspect it's more that the years of increasing power and influence have made him overconfident about what he can get away with. Arrogance and treating people with disdain aren't cutting it any more.
It needed an immediate admission that the practices were totally unacceptable. An immediate apology and promise that he was on his way to sort it out and hold those responsible, right to the top, to account. An urgent personal apology to the family of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler, the hacking of whose phone started the public outrage.
He should not have refused to attend the parliamentary hearing - a bad decision since reversed only as he realised the severity of the storm and threats of a summons to appear were made.
He should have immediately dropped his bid to buy the whole of BSkyB, 'pending the outcome of the current investigations'. Instead he tried to remove it from the political arena by having it referred to the competion watchdog, then had to withdraw the bid anyway. Calls are now being made to consider whether News should be allowed to retain its existing 39% holding.
All in all, mistake piled on mistake. As I said, out of character and massively damaging to the empire. Perhaps even fatal to it in its present form.
It will certainly lead in the UK to a formal distancing between media proprietors and politicians and between the media and police. Perhaps a new media regulator, maybe no more self regulation. More attention will be paid to the meaning of a 'fit and proper' person in relation to media owners. Quite possibly stronger regulations about the percentage of media one person can control.
Very senior people are going to be held responsible for their actions and lose their jobs - instead of the usual platitude of 'I take full responsibility' with absolutely nothing happening thereafter.
And much more transparency all round.
It's a big, big story and, as they say, it has legs. And there'll be more sensational revelations as it evolves.
* Private Eye covers are consistently brilliant. Do have a look at their website, click on 'Covers Library' and search Rupert Murdoch for example.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Keeping the bastards honest
The three Independents who won seats in Saturday's Australian election quickly received phone calls of congratulation from the leaders of the two main parties.
Strange that leaders of the two dominant parties, with everything that's on their plates on election night, would give priority to congratulating irrelevant winning opponents.
Not strange this time. They're suddenly very relevant. The election was a draw.
A party needs a minimum of 76 seats to take power. It looks like the final score will be 73 - 73, the balance of power lying with one Green and three Independents.
Whichever side can convince the Gang of Four to back them will be the new government.
It's going to be unsavoury. The clichéd smoke-filled back rooms with the faceless behind-the-scenes party power brokers trying to outdo the other side withbribes millions of dollars of our taxes to be poured into the four constituences.
The founder of the Australian Democrats, Don Chipp, comes to mind. Speaking of the two major parties, he said that the Democrat role would be to 'keep the bastards honest'.
It was the slogan, the rallying call, of the party.
That phrase was in mind when I visited my blogroll friends and landed in Houston Texas at Thomas' blog Mean Green Cougar Red.
His post was a teaser to have a look at Tom Scott's blog posting 'Journalism Warning Labels'.
Tom's come up with a great idea to help to keep those bastards honest.
Or at least to add some honesty to what's appearing in print. Tom's created a range of 'Warning' stickers which readers can fix to stories.
Here's an example:
Sound familiar? Here are some more, very relevant...and not just in this region:
I bet, like me, you could have used some of them on your morning newspaper.
I have to agree with Thomas' comment: "I found these labels to be humorous and depressing at the same time, because they're so true."
Tom has a whole range of them which you can print out. They come in various languages too, so they have world-wide possibilities.
What a good idea to do that and stick them to the papers in the coffee shop or in your company reception area.
You'll discover which coffee shops I use because I'm going to print out a few sheets...
You'll find Tom's post here where you can enjoy many more examples and print out your own sheets.
Strange that leaders of the two dominant parties, with everything that's on their plates on election night, would give priority to congratulating irrelevant winning opponents.
Not strange this time. They're suddenly very relevant. The election was a draw.
A party needs a minimum of 76 seats to take power. It looks like the final score will be 73 - 73, the balance of power lying with one Green and three Independents.
Whichever side can convince the Gang of Four to back them will be the new government.
It's going to be unsavoury. The clichéd smoke-filled back rooms with the faceless behind-the-scenes party power brokers trying to outdo the other side with
The founder of the Australian Democrats, Don Chipp, comes to mind. Speaking of the two major parties, he said that the Democrat role would be to 'keep the bastards honest'.
It was the slogan, the rallying call, of the party.
That phrase was in mind when I visited my blogroll friends and landed in Houston Texas at Thomas' blog Mean Green Cougar Red.
His post was a teaser to have a look at Tom Scott's blog posting 'Journalism Warning Labels'.
Tom's come up with a great idea to help to keep those bastards honest.
Or at least to add some honesty to what's appearing in print. Tom's created a range of 'Warning' stickers which readers can fix to stories.
Here's an example:
Sound familiar? Here are some more, very relevant...and not just in this region:
I bet, like me, you could have used some of them on your morning newspaper.
I have to agree with Thomas' comment: "I found these labels to be humorous and depressing at the same time, because they're so true."
Tom has a whole range of them which you can print out. They come in various languages too, so they have world-wide possibilities.
What a good idea to do that and stick them to the papers in the coffee shop or in your company reception area.
You'll discover which coffee shops I use because I'm going to print out a few sheets...
You'll find Tom's post here where you can enjoy many more examples and print out your own sheets.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Did 'Dubai' do it?
I've been reading some of the reports around the world about the leak at Dubai Aquarium.
They often add the the old property crash/debt crisis/Burj Khalifa lift problem stuff, so they become very negative about Dubai. And of course it encourages the real Dubai/Arab/Muslim bashers to jump in with their comments.
Here's a classic from the Huffington Post for example:
"Coool! Dubai is the farce of modern society. They have everything.... but it's built with our oil money ..... they are NOT a modern society... they are the oppose. People still get flogged for kissing in public, jailed for infidelity, and any other horrific thing you may hav heard about; men whip women on the beach in bikinis, spit on them...and that's just the tip of the sand dune."
Anyone in Dubai recognise the place from that?
But I did enjoy a couple of the other comments:
"It was probably caused by a stray bullet from the not-so-secret Mossad hit squad.
Boy! When things go wrong..."
And:
"Dubai has a lot of problems,,,,,,,,,,,,,, i.e. bankruptcy; closure of their new tower; this.
Is it possible that they themselves staged the hit on the Palestinian murderer to take attention away from its own problems?"
Anyway, that was really an aside, I distracted myself.
What I was going to post about was that while 'Dubai' is taking all the flak there's an important part of the story that isn't included.
'Dubai' didn't make the huge acrylic window, 'Dubai' didn't design the aquarium and 'Dubai' doesn't operate it.
The difference in reporting is interesting.
Buildings collapse in other cities but the stories aren't negative about the city itself.
Toyota has major problems and the negative stories are about Toyota. Not about 'Japan'.
But with the aquarium leak, and other stories about problems in Dubai, it's 'Dubai' itself which takes the hits. In fact, the aquarium problem must surely relate to either the designer and operator, Oceanis Australia Group, or to Emaar.
The viewing panel, which leaked, was commissioned under the supervision of Oceanis Australia Group. I can't find the name of the manufacturer, although there seem to be only three companies in the world capable of producing it. It's the world's largest acrylic panel, 32.8 meters wide, 8.3 metres high, 750 mm thick and weighs 245,614 kg.
When it was commissioned it was, according to Emaar's press release:
"...at the limit of production abilities by major acrylic manufacturers..."
It isn't in one piece though. If you stand at an angle to it you can see where the panels are joined. The panels are apparently fused with acrylic-soluble cement. From what I can gather from the stories it was a joint that was the problem, although the information is vague as usual and I could well be wrong.
I assume the panels were joined in the specialist factory, in Japan or wherever, which built it. Or could it be that the panels were joined here? That might be something that could be (but won't be) clarified by Emaar's PR people.
It would be good to hear from Oceanis Australia Group and from the manufacturer of the window about what happened and why.
I wonder if the PR people from the three organisations are talking to each other and getting factual information together that would stop the speculation...
Huffington Post story is here.
Emaar's original press release is here.
They often add the the old property crash/debt crisis/Burj Khalifa lift problem stuff, so they become very negative about Dubai. And of course it encourages the real Dubai/Arab/Muslim bashers to jump in with their comments.
Here's a classic from the Huffington Post for example:
"Coool! Dubai is the farce of modern society. They have everything.... but it's built with our oil money ..... they are NOT a modern society... they are the oppose. People still get flogged for kissing in public, jailed for infidelity, and any other horrific thing you may hav heard about; men whip women on the beach in bikinis, spit on them...and that's just the tip of the sand dune."
Anyone in Dubai recognise the place from that?
But I did enjoy a couple of the other comments:
"It was probably caused by a stray bullet from the not-so-secret Mossad hit squad.
Boy! When things go wrong..."
And:
"Dubai has a lot of problems,,,,,,,,,,,,,, i.e. bankruptcy; closure of their new tower; this.
Is it possible that they themselves staged the hit on the Palestinian murderer to take attention away from its own problems?"
Anyway, that was really an aside, I distracted myself.
What I was going to post about was that while 'Dubai' is taking all the flak there's an important part of the story that isn't included.
'Dubai' didn't make the huge acrylic window, 'Dubai' didn't design the aquarium and 'Dubai' doesn't operate it.
The difference in reporting is interesting.
Buildings collapse in other cities but the stories aren't negative about the city itself.
Toyota has major problems and the negative stories are about Toyota. Not about 'Japan'.
But with the aquarium leak, and other stories about problems in Dubai, it's 'Dubai' itself which takes the hits. In fact, the aquarium problem must surely relate to either the designer and operator, Oceanis Australia Group, or to Emaar.
The viewing panel, which leaked, was commissioned under the supervision of Oceanis Australia Group. I can't find the name of the manufacturer, although there seem to be only three companies in the world capable of producing it. It's the world's largest acrylic panel, 32.8 meters wide, 8.3 metres high, 750 mm thick and weighs 245,614 kg.
When it was commissioned it was, according to Emaar's press release:
"...at the limit of production abilities by major acrylic manufacturers..."
It isn't in one piece though. If you stand at an angle to it you can see where the panels are joined. The panels are apparently fused with acrylic-soluble cement. From what I can gather from the stories it was a joint that was the problem, although the information is vague as usual and I could well be wrong.
I assume the panels were joined in the specialist factory, in Japan or wherever, which built it. Or could it be that the panels were joined here? That might be something that could be (but won't be) clarified by Emaar's PR people.
It would be good to hear from Oceanis Australia Group and from the manufacturer of the window about what happened and why.
I wonder if the PR people from the three organisations are talking to each other and getting factual information together that would stop the speculation...
Huffington Post story is here.
Emaar's original press release is here.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Shhh. Keep it secret.
An interesting and strongly worded lead editorial in Gulf News today from none other than the Editor in Chief which shows a mindset I thought was on the way out.
In it he lambasts the Japanese Consul General for saying what is already common knowledge, that "Dubai companies are late on their dues to Japanese companies."
He says the CG is out of line, accuses him of violating diplomatic norms and goes as far as saying: "I urge the UAE Government to strongly condemn his stance, and summon him and his boss, the ambassador, to protest against his reckless behaviour, and perhaps the UAE should declare him persona non grata."
Ironically, it was a government-controlled paper, The National, which published the CG's remarks.
I saw no comparable editorial rant when the Financial Times ran a story about the UK's Secretary of State for Business: "Lord Mandelson has raised concerns about the failure of developers in the United Arab Emirates to pay British contractors, and has sought reassurances from local rulers that financial commitments will be honoured." No demand then that Lord M be declared persona non grata.
It leads me to suspect that the reason behind this rant was that the story appeared locally.
Local exposure goes against the old thinking of keeping the UAE population in the dark if anything unwanted is said or happens. Pointless. Those days are long gone. In the age of the internet we know what's happening, but that mindset hasn't kept up with the information age.
It really is a ferocious attack on the CG.
"Does Mr Otsuka work as a Consul General of Japan, or as an official spokesman for these Japanese companies? Perhaps the companies appointed him as their official representative and forgot to tell us.
Did the companies concerned give him a mandate to speak on their behalf, or was it just an individual effort by someone who obviously took all the wrong turns?
Personally, I don’t want to believe that the Consul General works secretly as an adviser to a Japanese company, or as a paid lawyer, which would propel him to embarrass his embassy and country. But I think the diplomat was betrayed by his ill-advised, undiplomatic comments and stuck his nose into something that is not his business.
...it seems the Japanese Consul General, through his strange comment, has joined the orchestra that has been playing all the negative tunes against Dubai, especially in some sections of the Western media"
Actually, the reality is that dilomats and business are inextricably linked. Embassies are involved in promoting and helping their countries' companies as much as they are in issuing visas and attending cocktail parties.
Even royal families promote their countries' exports. Britain's Queen visits a country and a huge business group travels with her. Her son Prince Andrew, Duke of York, is the United Kingdom's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment.
So it's a bit rich saying that a CG is out of line and exceeding his brief, which the editorial sneeringly refers to as: ... his job, which I believe is to issue entry visas."
He also says: "So far, we have not heard from the companies on whose behalf the Consul General volunteered to speak - in the process, shooting himself in the foot."
We have.
The report in The National included a quote from the GM of Mitsubish Heavy Industries saying that MHI was awaiting payments on major contracts with Dubai companies.
A decade into the 21st century, with all the strides the UAE and Dubai have made in moving on from archaic thinking, I really am surprised at the mindset and at the ferociousness of the criticism.
You can read the editorial here. What do you think?
In it he lambasts the Japanese Consul General for saying what is already common knowledge, that "Dubai companies are late on their dues to Japanese companies."
He says the CG is out of line, accuses him of violating diplomatic norms and goes as far as saying: "I urge the UAE Government to strongly condemn his stance, and summon him and his boss, the ambassador, to protest against his reckless behaviour, and perhaps the UAE should declare him persona non grata."
Ironically, it was a government-controlled paper, The National, which published the CG's remarks.
I saw no comparable editorial rant when the Financial Times ran a story about the UK's Secretary of State for Business: "Lord Mandelson has raised concerns about the failure of developers in the United Arab Emirates to pay British contractors, and has sought reassurances from local rulers that financial commitments will be honoured." No demand then that Lord M be declared persona non grata.
It leads me to suspect that the reason behind this rant was that the story appeared locally.
Local exposure goes against the old thinking of keeping the UAE population in the dark if anything unwanted is said or happens. Pointless. Those days are long gone. In the age of the internet we know what's happening, but that mindset hasn't kept up with the information age.
It really is a ferocious attack on the CG.
"Does Mr Otsuka work as a Consul General of Japan, or as an official spokesman for these Japanese companies? Perhaps the companies appointed him as their official representative and forgot to tell us.
Did the companies concerned give him a mandate to speak on their behalf, or was it just an individual effort by someone who obviously took all the wrong turns?
Personally, I don’t want to believe that the Consul General works secretly as an adviser to a Japanese company, or as a paid lawyer, which would propel him to embarrass his embassy and country. But I think the diplomat was betrayed by his ill-advised, undiplomatic comments and stuck his nose into something that is not his business.
...it seems the Japanese Consul General, through his strange comment, has joined the orchestra that has been playing all the negative tunes against Dubai, especially in some sections of the Western media"
Actually, the reality is that dilomats and business are inextricably linked. Embassies are involved in promoting and helping their countries' companies as much as they are in issuing visas and attending cocktail parties.
Even royal families promote their countries' exports. Britain's Queen visits a country and a huge business group travels with her. Her son Prince Andrew, Duke of York, is the United Kingdom's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment.
So it's a bit rich saying that a CG is out of line and exceeding his brief, which the editorial sneeringly refers to as: ... his job, which I believe is to issue entry visas."
He also says: "So far, we have not heard from the companies on whose behalf the Consul General volunteered to speak - in the process, shooting himself in the foot."
We have.
The report in The National included a quote from the GM of Mitsubish Heavy Industries saying that MHI was awaiting payments on major contracts with Dubai companies.
A decade into the 21st century, with all the strides the UAE and Dubai have made in moving on from archaic thinking, I really am surprised at the mindset and at the ferociousness of the criticism.
You can read the editorial here. What do you think?
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Spinning the news
Feel free to ignore this bit, I first need to rant about the dreadful new Gulf News web site. Again.
I can't believe how bad it is, it's now without doubt one of the worst newspaper sites on the web. I simply don't understand how anybody involved can think it's better than the one it replaced.
I'll get to the real post in a minute, which was triggered by a story in the India news section of today's Gulf News.
That section extends over four full pages, about a dozen stories.
What does the website give us in the India news section? Three of today's stories, then it travels back in time to old stories from earlier issues.
So much for the modern, up-to-the-minute, instant internet.
I tried searching for the story I want but: "Sorry your search did not find any results"
A dozen of today's stories are considered worth publishing in the paper but for the website only three are deemed worthy, and old stories dominate.
Anyone else as frustrated with it as I am? How about a petition to encourage them to scrap it and go back to the sensible, useable design?
And so to the real post.
There's an interesting example of how spin is put on stories, how facts are presented very differently, an example of why getting our news from one source is dangerous. A demonstration that we need to get information from a number of sources and use our brains to work out what's really happening.
The stories relate to a survey of over 6000 students from eight countries, including 1,100 from India, conducted by IDP Education.
Gulf News uses a wire story from PTI, the Press Trust of India, headed:
"Australia could see 50% fall in Indian students"
The spin on the PTI report is transparent if you give it any thought at all, or if you balance it against other reports.
It begins "In the backdrop of a spate of racial attacks in Australia, Down Under could witness a 50 per cent drop in Indian students in the next session."
Immediately you get the way they're going with this.
It goes on to claim the CEO of IDP Education: "...felt the fall in numbers might be entirely due to safety issues, global slowdown could also play a part in it."
That's followed immediately by what he actually said: "We have the GFC (global financial crisis), which has obviously impacted upon families in India and that’s evident by the fact that the applications for other countries are way down, particularly the US."
What he said and what they say he said are two totally different things.
The GN PTI report itself ends with another quote from the CEO, basically contradicting its own spin on the story. It says: "The somewhat surprising result and indeed promising result is that they believe Australia to be the safest destination of all the English speaking destinations - and by quite a margin."
In Oz the story says:
"Australia tops poll for student safety.
Despite media coverage here and overseas of violent attacks on Indian students, nearly 40 per cent of respondents ticked Australia as the safest place when asked to choose from a list comprising Australia, the US, Britain, New Zealand and Canada. The US ranked last for safety, with 4.3 per cent.
IDP Education chief executive Anthony Pollock said the findings in relation to Indian students reflected the 'private opinion of students which may be a little better disposed towards Australia than the public opinion in the press'.
He said IDP was expecting a 50 per cent drop in Indian student enrolments next year because of negative media coverage in India of attacks on Indian students, the global economic squeeze and a government crackdown on bad practices in the international education industry."
Same story about the same research but two very different impressions given.
Thanks to the failings of the new Gulf News website I can't give you a link because the story isn't there. I can give you a link to a different site which has part of the PTI story though, so I'll do that.
You can find a story based on the PTI report here.
The alternative interpretation is here.
I can't believe how bad it is, it's now without doubt one of the worst newspaper sites on the web. I simply don't understand how anybody involved can think it's better than the one it replaced.
I'll get to the real post in a minute, which was triggered by a story in the India news section of today's Gulf News.
That section extends over four full pages, about a dozen stories.
What does the website give us in the India news section? Three of today's stories, then it travels back in time to old stories from earlier issues.
So much for the modern, up-to-the-minute, instant internet.
I tried searching for the story I want but: "Sorry your search did not find any results"
A dozen of today's stories are considered worth publishing in the paper but for the website only three are deemed worthy, and old stories dominate.
Anyone else as frustrated with it as I am? How about a petition to encourage them to scrap it and go back to the sensible, useable design?
And so to the real post.
There's an interesting example of how spin is put on stories, how facts are presented very differently, an example of why getting our news from one source is dangerous. A demonstration that we need to get information from a number of sources and use our brains to work out what's really happening.
The stories relate to a survey of over 6000 students from eight countries, including 1,100 from India, conducted by IDP Education.
Gulf News uses a wire story from PTI, the Press Trust of India, headed:
"Australia could see 50% fall in Indian students"
The spin on the PTI report is transparent if you give it any thought at all, or if you balance it against other reports.
It begins "In the backdrop of a spate of racial attacks in Australia, Down Under could witness a 50 per cent drop in Indian students in the next session."
Immediately you get the way they're going with this.
It goes on to claim the CEO of IDP Education: "...felt the fall in numbers might be entirely due to safety issues, global slowdown could also play a part in it."
That's followed immediately by what he actually said: "We have the GFC (global financial crisis), which has obviously impacted upon families in India and that’s evident by the fact that the applications for other countries are way down, particularly the US."
What he said and what they say he said are two totally different things.
The GN PTI report itself ends with another quote from the CEO, basically contradicting its own spin on the story. It says: "The somewhat surprising result and indeed promising result is that they believe Australia to be the safest destination of all the English speaking destinations - and by quite a margin."
In Oz the story says:
"Australia tops poll for student safety.
Despite media coverage here and overseas of violent attacks on Indian students, nearly 40 per cent of respondents ticked Australia as the safest place when asked to choose from a list comprising Australia, the US, Britain, New Zealand and Canada. The US ranked last for safety, with 4.3 per cent.
IDP Education chief executive Anthony Pollock said the findings in relation to Indian students reflected the 'private opinion of students which may be a little better disposed towards Australia than the public opinion in the press'.
He said IDP was expecting a 50 per cent drop in Indian student enrolments next year because of negative media coverage in India of attacks on Indian students, the global economic squeeze and a government crackdown on bad practices in the international education industry."
Same story about the same research but two very different impressions given.
Thanks to the failings of the new Gulf News website I can't give you a link because the story isn't there. I can give you a link to a different site which has part of the PTI story though, so I'll do that.
You can find a story based on the PTI report here.
The alternative interpretation is here.
Monday, October 05, 2009
Dubai, ghost town
You'll recall the confident predictions, from sections of the British press in particular which was gleefully repeated by people living here, that the economic meltdown would destroy Dubai.
With absolute certainty they insisted that Dubai would rapidly become a ghost town, abandoned by its expats and reclaimed by the desert sands.
The hysterical reports told us there were three thousand cars abandoned at the airport by fleeing expats. Hundreds more maxed-out expats were sleeping at the airport and in the desert.
But worse was to come because tens of thousands more would flee at the end of the school term.
All absolute nonsense of course.
Thousands of cars were not abandoned at the airport, there were not hundreds of homeless, jobless, maxed-out expats living in the airport or the desert.
And the thousands who were only staying so that their children could finish the term's schooling, well, they're still here.
We're at the start of the new school term and the schools are still full.
Many more roads have been completed but the traffic is still heavy - and chaos when there's one of our regular crashes.
The cafes and restaurants are still doing good business as people still eat out.
In a post at the beginning of December I said I thought there would be an upside to the downturn, that it would force a pause in the frenzy of development, allow for better planning, allow time for infrastructure to catch up.
A downturn and slowdown yes, a ghost town no.
I've posted many times that the predictions of Dubai's collapse were gross exaggerations with no understanding of its history. The evidence I see backs me up.
Plenty of traffic this morning in New Dubai around 10 o'clock after the peak...
And there was no evidence of a ghost town at The Walk at JBR early Friday evening...
I'm not holding my breath that the writers who made those confident, often spiteful, predictions will bother themselves with a retraction.
With absolute certainty they insisted that Dubai would rapidly become a ghost town, abandoned by its expats and reclaimed by the desert sands.
The hysterical reports told us there were three thousand cars abandoned at the airport by fleeing expats. Hundreds more maxed-out expats were sleeping at the airport and in the desert.
But worse was to come because tens of thousands more would flee at the end of the school term.
All absolute nonsense of course.
Thousands of cars were not abandoned at the airport, there were not hundreds of homeless, jobless, maxed-out expats living in the airport or the desert.
And the thousands who were only staying so that their children could finish the term's schooling, well, they're still here.
We're at the start of the new school term and the schools are still full.
Many more roads have been completed but the traffic is still heavy - and chaos when there's one of our regular crashes.
The cafes and restaurants are still doing good business as people still eat out.
In a post at the beginning of December I said I thought there would be an upside to the downturn, that it would force a pause in the frenzy of development, allow for better planning, allow time for infrastructure to catch up.
A downturn and slowdown yes, a ghost town no.
I've posted many times that the predictions of Dubai's collapse were gross exaggerations with no understanding of its history. The evidence I see backs me up.
Plenty of traffic this morning in New Dubai around 10 o'clock after the peak...
And there was no evidence of a ghost town at The Walk at JBR early Friday evening...
I'm not holding my breath that the writers who made those confident, often spiteful, predictions will bother themselves with a retraction.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Dubai vs Abu Dhabi
Today's Travel section of 'Sydney Morning Herald' has a piece on the rivalry between AD and Dubai.
Less hysterical reporting in this one than we've seen in the past, especially in the articles about Dubai. It looks as though the writer, Michelle Wranik, actually spent some time here and got herself out and about.
For example, in previous atrticles I haven't seen much about my favourite areas of Dubai, like this:
...you can find some of the tastiest curries and thalis at rock-bottom prices in Karama or Satwa – both grungier, though character-filled suburban areas.
It's in these lesser-known areas where Dubai hides most of its surprises. Like parts of the beachside Umm Suqeim or Jumeirah, where there are small mosques on every corner, ramshackle fishermen's huts and a well-loved sailing club. Or the scruffy commercial district, Al Quoz, where the number of art galleries sprouting up suggests a city ready for a cultural renaissance.
The labyrinth of souks in Deira, on the eastern side of Dubai Creek, also offers a glimpse into the city's past. The muddled rabbit warrens of stalls manned by Indian and Persian merchants sell everything from tacky magnets to fine silk, gold and spices. Walking along the creek at night when the calls to prayer sound in unison from the surrounding mosques feels worlds away from glacially air-conditioned shopping malls. There's even a Little India of sorts, in the form of Hindi Lane – a chaotic alley behind the fabric souk, packed with stalls selling flower garlands, incense and statues of Hindu idols.
The final para about Dubai was perceptive:
For those who fail to see beyond the fancy facade, Dubai is the epitome of gaudy. But scrape beneath the surface and that's where the similarity between Paris Hilton and Dubai begins and ends. It's not as synthetic as it looks.
One of the problems with most previous articles is that they've been unbalanced with plenty of inaccuracies. They've either been breathless, over the top reports of nothing but the new developments or 'dark side of Dubai' stories.
The article is here.
Less hysterical reporting in this one than we've seen in the past, especially in the articles about Dubai. It looks as though the writer, Michelle Wranik, actually spent some time here and got herself out and about.
For example, in previous atrticles I haven't seen much about my favourite areas of Dubai, like this:
...you can find some of the tastiest curries and thalis at rock-bottom prices in Karama or Satwa – both grungier, though character-filled suburban areas.
It's in these lesser-known areas where Dubai hides most of its surprises. Like parts of the beachside Umm Suqeim or Jumeirah, where there are small mosques on every corner, ramshackle fishermen's huts and a well-loved sailing club. Or the scruffy commercial district, Al Quoz, where the number of art galleries sprouting up suggests a city ready for a cultural renaissance.
The labyrinth of souks in Deira, on the eastern side of Dubai Creek, also offers a glimpse into the city's past. The muddled rabbit warrens of stalls manned by Indian and Persian merchants sell everything from tacky magnets to fine silk, gold and spices. Walking along the creek at night when the calls to prayer sound in unison from the surrounding mosques feels worlds away from glacially air-conditioned shopping malls. There's even a Little India of sorts, in the form of Hindi Lane – a chaotic alley behind the fabric souk, packed with stalls selling flower garlands, incense and statues of Hindu idols.
The final para about Dubai was perceptive:
For those who fail to see beyond the fancy facade, Dubai is the epitome of gaudy. But scrape beneath the surface and that's where the similarity between Paris Hilton and Dubai begins and ends. It's not as synthetic as it looks.
One of the problems with most previous articles is that they've been unbalanced with plenty of inaccuracies. They've either been breathless, over the top reports of nothing but the new developments or 'dark side of Dubai' stories.
The article is here.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Dubai bashing from the Sunday Times
There's yet another article following the fad for Dubai bashing, this one in the UK Sunday Times.
I'd missed it because we were flying back to Dubai during Saturday night, so thanks to Andy the Redundancy Porsche Man for the heads up.
Andy's featured in the article and having obviously given some assistance to Rod Liddle the author I should say in passing that I thought he was depicted somewhat ungraciously.
Once again it's an article concentrating solely about what's wrong, with no balance, but at least it isn't the sort of inaccurate and often patently untrue and sensationalist garbage we've seen from Johann Hari recently.
Even something that's contrary to my experience and with which I fundamentally disagree, I can't fault because the writer is honest in his statement because he says it's what people told him.
"...The British expats I spoke to believed, without exception, that the Emiratis are utterly useless, corrupt and indolent..."
Other less professional writers would have said "all British expats" while Rod Liddle specifically quotes the few Brits he spoke with. I have no reason to doubt that they said exactly as he reported, I've heard the same huge generalisation from a couple of Brits myself.
(Incidentally, those same Brits would be ropeable if they were all categorised in the same derogatory way, as Hari depicted British expats in 'The Dark Side of Dubai' )
In his note to me Andy describes the article as 'harsh' and you'll probably agree if you read it, here.
I'd missed it because we were flying back to Dubai during Saturday night, so thanks to Andy the Redundancy Porsche Man for the heads up.
Andy's featured in the article and having obviously given some assistance to Rod Liddle the author I should say in passing that I thought he was depicted somewhat ungraciously.
Once again it's an article concentrating solely about what's wrong, with no balance, but at least it isn't the sort of inaccurate and often patently untrue and sensationalist garbage we've seen from Johann Hari recently.
Even something that's contrary to my experience and with which I fundamentally disagree, I can't fault because the writer is honest in his statement because he says it's what people told him.
"...The British expats I spoke to believed, without exception, that the Emiratis are utterly useless, corrupt and indolent..."
Other less professional writers would have said "all British expats" while Rod Liddle specifically quotes the few Brits he spoke with. I have no reason to doubt that they said exactly as he reported, I've heard the same huge generalisation from a couple of Brits myself.
(Incidentally, those same Brits would be ropeable if they were all categorised in the same derogatory way, as Hari depicted British expats in 'The Dark Side of Dubai' )
In his note to me Andy describes the article as 'harsh' and you'll probably agree if you read it, here.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Dubai in the news again
The British press is like a dog with a bone over Dubai.
For several years there were the gushing 'miracle of Dubai' stories, recently replaced by the 'built on sand' stories.
Both types generally have the same basic problems, lack of context, lack of history, doubtful claims, incorrect information, and usually a complete lack of balance.
The latest was in The Times yesterday, headlined with the old cliche "Dubai's dream is built on sand".
Oh dear.
Over the years there seems to be only three headlines they can come up with 'The Miracle of Dubai', 'Built On Sand', 'Dubai's Dark Dream'.
Where did creativity go?
Anyway, this one starts with the same old problems, there's no history, as though Dubai suddenly appeared out of the desert in 2000. There's no context either and it talks about the place as though it's the only one hit by the economic crisis, the only one with a property slump and high debts.
All of this is something that requires the attention of the new Media Office for Brand Dubai by the way. Giving information, placing stories, about Dubai's history as a trading, commercial and retail centre from it's very beginnings.
An example of lack of context in this latest article is 'house prices are down by as much as 50%' without saying that relates to September's peak. As one of the comments points out, 'although property is down 50%, it is 100% more than in 2004'.
It also cherrypicks one prediction, that property prices will fall a further 20%. It chooses to ignore other predictions that prices have reached bottom.
But there's also good stuff too, such as the poor decision on the new property-related visa, about the apparent slowness to react to the crisis and in particular about the lack of transparency and communication. That's something government and business here is struggling to come to terms with, although I think there's evidence that things are improving.
It's really culture and tradition. Those in charge, whether of companies or government, have traditionally just made decisions and got on with it. No communication, no transparency because it wasn't needed, people just accepted that was the way things were done here.
When you think about it there've been huge changes in these areas in a very short period and although there's a long way to go we're generally moving in the right direction.
Unlike almost all the previous pieces on Dubai this latest one does bring in some balance in the second part and it includes a range of opinions.
As always I like to read the comments, and again there's some balance from the 26 currently on the website as I write this, including as usual comments from the extremes.
The article is here.
For several years there were the gushing 'miracle of Dubai' stories, recently replaced by the 'built on sand' stories.
Both types generally have the same basic problems, lack of context, lack of history, doubtful claims, incorrect information, and usually a complete lack of balance.
The latest was in The Times yesterday, headlined with the old cliche "Dubai's dream is built on sand".
Oh dear.
Over the years there seems to be only three headlines they can come up with 'The Miracle of Dubai', 'Built On Sand', 'Dubai's Dark Dream'.
Where did creativity go?
Anyway, this one starts with the same old problems, there's no history, as though Dubai suddenly appeared out of the desert in 2000. There's no context either and it talks about the place as though it's the only one hit by the economic crisis, the only one with a property slump and high debts.
All of this is something that requires the attention of the new Media Office for Brand Dubai by the way. Giving information, placing stories, about Dubai's history as a trading, commercial and retail centre from it's very beginnings.
An example of lack of context in this latest article is 'house prices are down by as much as 50%' without saying that relates to September's peak. As one of the comments points out, 'although property is down 50%, it is 100% more than in 2004'.
It also cherrypicks one prediction, that property prices will fall a further 20%. It chooses to ignore other predictions that prices have reached bottom.
But there's also good stuff too, such as the poor decision on the new property-related visa, about the apparent slowness to react to the crisis and in particular about the lack of transparency and communication. That's something government and business here is struggling to come to terms with, although I think there's evidence that things are improving.
It's really culture and tradition. Those in charge, whether of companies or government, have traditionally just made decisions and got on with it. No communication, no transparency because it wasn't needed, people just accepted that was the way things were done here.
When you think about it there've been huge changes in these areas in a very short period and although there's a long way to go we're generally moving in the right direction.
Unlike almost all the previous pieces on Dubai this latest one does bring in some balance in the second part and it includes a range of opinions.
As always I like to read the comments, and again there's some balance from the 26 currently on the website as I write this, including as usual comments from the extremes.
The article is here.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Those were the days
The publicity surrounding 'What's On' magazine's thirtieth birthday prompts me to indulge myself and wallow in memories about the good ol' days in Dubai.
'Wallowing' because I was there at the conception and birth of the magazine, I even wrote a story for the first edition. The founder of the magazine, and what is now the publishing empire of Motivate Publishing, Ian Fairservice is a good friend from way back then.
I'm still embarrassed about the story, it was so bad. I was horrendously busy at the office, people were constantly coming in with their problems and in the middle of it all I dashed it off in a couple of minutes...
That brings to mind a change in Dubai, working hours. We worked, officially, 8 to 1 and 4 to 7 Sunday through Wednesday, 8 to 2 on Thursday. Weekend was what was left of Thursday plus Friday. I say 'officially' because in reality we worked through much of the siesta time and never left at the official finishing time, so a sixty hour or more week was quite normal.
In fact I met Ian before he moved here. I was, as wasn't unusual, sitting in the Banjo Bar at the Excelsior Hotel one evening. Ian was here for his interview as Assistant General Manager and we got chatting as he wanted to know about living and working in Dubai.
A few weeks later I was sitting in the Banjo Bar, again, when Ian came in and told me he'd accepted the job and had just moved to Dubai.
The Excelsior was my 'local' because it was near my apartment, and there really wasn't a lot of choice back then. I lived on the top floor of a brand new building in Deira - Al Ghurair Centre was subsequently built not far from it. In 1977 it looked like this...
The Excelsior was one of not many hotels back then and like most buildings in Dubai was surrounded by sand.
The original hotel brochure had a somewhat misleading photograph on the cover. We'd had some rain and the big puddle which appeared outside the hotel gave the photographer an idea, the sort of shot he'd seen waterfront hotels overseas use...
The old Excelsior eventually became Sheraton Deira. If you know it now you'll realise just how much the city has changed.
Ian and I became firm friends and a little later we bought a mobile disco. That's another hint at Dubai back then. There was a disco at the Inter.Continental hotel on the Creek, I seem to remember another at, I think, the Riviera hotel, there was a mobile disco sponsored by Marlboro cigarettes and us. That was it.
We really started it as a bit of fun but there was a big demand and we did pretty well out of it, getting Dh750 for each gig. We had the latest disco records (yes, vinyl discs folks) sent from the UK by friends, shared the deejaying, the setting up and dismantling, lugged the heavy equipment around in the heat and humidity.
Power cuts weren't unusual in those days which meant lifts weren't operating and on more than one occasion, in the early hours of the morning, we had to stagger up the stairs to my sixth floor apartment several times with speakers, lights, boxes of records, the disco console. We consoled ourselves by telling each other the fee made it worthwhile.
We did one-offs in private houses and various places like Dubai Country Club and the Indian Club and we had regular gigs at places like the RAK Hotel and Al Ain Hilton.
Ian had an old Range Rover which we used to transport the gear on roads which were a bit different from those we drive on today. Here's the disco on the Dubai-Ras Al Khaimah Road...
And here's the Dubai-Al Ain road...
I was managing an advertising agency and when Ian decided to leave the hotel and start 'What's On' we had many a long chat about the viability, how it could be succesful, the kind of content, whether to have a cover price. I didn't even dream that it would still be going strong thirty years later, much less that it would have morphed into a publishing empire and all credit to Ian for what he's achieved.
Putting it in context you have to realise that back then there was no English media and Dubai was a very different place. He was going into, to use a cliche, uncharted waters.
Population was maybe 250,000 to 300,000. Emiratis made up a much larger percentage of the population than they do now but there was still a large and varied expat population. Entertainment was very limited, there were very few hotels, no tourist industry. Was there enough happening to provide content for a 'What's On' magazine? Were there enough advertisers to support it? Were there enough people who'd read it?
Actually there was one English-language thing to read, called Recorder. It had changed from its earlier name of Reuters because it was actually nothing to do with Reuters, it was a local invention. It was simply copies of Reuters wire stories on A4 paper stapled together. To advertise to the English-speaking audience we printed our own A4 leaflets, one or both sides, and they were stapled, for a fee of course, into Recorder.
Photographers were thin on the ground as was all the infrastructure the ad industry needed, models for example. We had to use friends and colleages - this photo from the Excelsior brochure is an example. Amateur it looks and amateur indeed it is. Those are real waiters serving Ian and a staff member pretending to be guests.
The usual thing to do was to clip photographs from overseas magazines and use them as artwork. Copyright wasn't something to bother with. Those were the days? Maybe not after all.
Most of my photographs from the old days are back in Australia but I have a few with me and I came across this one of Ian, which I'm sure he won't mind me going public with, and it gives another glimpse of a very different Dubai.
This is Jumeirah beach, what's now Jumeirah Beach Park next to the Dubai Marine Resort.
Ian in the lounger, lead guitarist and singer from the band then playing at the Excelsior's Eve Super Club (which we assumed should have been Supper Club), big George Haddad the security man and a couple of hotel guests.
Actually, yes those were the good ol' days.
'Wallowing' because I was there at the conception and birth of the magazine, I even wrote a story for the first edition. The founder of the magazine, and what is now the publishing empire of Motivate Publishing, Ian Fairservice is a good friend from way back then.
I'm still embarrassed about the story, it was so bad. I was horrendously busy at the office, people were constantly coming in with their problems and in the middle of it all I dashed it off in a couple of minutes...
That brings to mind a change in Dubai, working hours. We worked, officially, 8 to 1 and 4 to 7 Sunday through Wednesday, 8 to 2 on Thursday. Weekend was what was left of Thursday plus Friday. I say 'officially' because in reality we worked through much of the siesta time and never left at the official finishing time, so a sixty hour or more week was quite normal.
In fact I met Ian before he moved here. I was, as wasn't unusual, sitting in the Banjo Bar at the Excelsior Hotel one evening. Ian was here for his interview as Assistant General Manager and we got chatting as he wanted to know about living and working in Dubai.
A few weeks later I was sitting in the Banjo Bar, again, when Ian came in and told me he'd accepted the job and had just moved to Dubai.
The Excelsior was my 'local' because it was near my apartment, and there really wasn't a lot of choice back then. I lived on the top floor of a brand new building in Deira - Al Ghurair Centre was subsequently built not far from it. In 1977 it looked like this...
The Excelsior was one of not many hotels back then and like most buildings in Dubai was surrounded by sand.
The original hotel brochure had a somewhat misleading photograph on the cover. We'd had some rain and the big puddle which appeared outside the hotel gave the photographer an idea, the sort of shot he'd seen waterfront hotels overseas use...
The old Excelsior eventually became Sheraton Deira. If you know it now you'll realise just how much the city has changed.
Ian and I became firm friends and a little later we bought a mobile disco. That's another hint at Dubai back then. There was a disco at the Inter.Continental hotel on the Creek, I seem to remember another at, I think, the Riviera hotel, there was a mobile disco sponsored by Marlboro cigarettes and us. That was it.
We really started it as a bit of fun but there was a big demand and we did pretty well out of it, getting Dh750 for each gig. We had the latest disco records (yes, vinyl discs folks) sent from the UK by friends, shared the deejaying, the setting up and dismantling, lugged the heavy equipment around in the heat and humidity.
Power cuts weren't unusual in those days which meant lifts weren't operating and on more than one occasion, in the early hours of the morning, we had to stagger up the stairs to my sixth floor apartment several times with speakers, lights, boxes of records, the disco console. We consoled ourselves by telling each other the fee made it worthwhile.
We did one-offs in private houses and various places like Dubai Country Club and the Indian Club and we had regular gigs at places like the RAK Hotel and Al Ain Hilton.
Ian had an old Range Rover which we used to transport the gear on roads which were a bit different from those we drive on today. Here's the disco on the Dubai-Ras Al Khaimah Road...
And here's the Dubai-Al Ain road...
I was managing an advertising agency and when Ian decided to leave the hotel and start 'What's On' we had many a long chat about the viability, how it could be succesful, the kind of content, whether to have a cover price. I didn't even dream that it would still be going strong thirty years later, much less that it would have morphed into a publishing empire and all credit to Ian for what he's achieved.
Putting it in context you have to realise that back then there was no English media and Dubai was a very different place. He was going into, to use a cliche, uncharted waters.
Population was maybe 250,000 to 300,000. Emiratis made up a much larger percentage of the population than they do now but there was still a large and varied expat population. Entertainment was very limited, there were very few hotels, no tourist industry. Was there enough happening to provide content for a 'What's On' magazine? Were there enough advertisers to support it? Were there enough people who'd read it?
Actually there was one English-language thing to read, called Recorder. It had changed from its earlier name of Reuters because it was actually nothing to do with Reuters, it was a local invention. It was simply copies of Reuters wire stories on A4 paper stapled together. To advertise to the English-speaking audience we printed our own A4 leaflets, one or both sides, and they were stapled, for a fee of course, into Recorder.
Photographers were thin on the ground as was all the infrastructure the ad industry needed, models for example. We had to use friends and colleages - this photo from the Excelsior brochure is an example. Amateur it looks and amateur indeed it is. Those are real waiters serving Ian and a staff member pretending to be guests.
The usual thing to do was to clip photographs from overseas magazines and use them as artwork. Copyright wasn't something to bother with. Those were the days? Maybe not after all.
Most of my photographs from the old days are back in Australia but I have a few with me and I came across this one of Ian, which I'm sure he won't mind me going public with, and it gives another glimpse of a very different Dubai.
This is Jumeirah beach, what's now Jumeirah Beach Park next to the Dubai Marine Resort.
Ian in the lounger, lead guitarist and singer from the band then playing at the Excelsior's Eve Super Club (which we assumed should have been Supper Club), big George Haddad the security man and a couple of hotel guests.
Actually, yes those were the good ol' days.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
PR office for Brand Dubai
A Dubai Media Affairs Office has been established by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid. An excellent move, although I think it's unfortunate that it wasn't set up six or seven years ago.
Had it been it may have been able to head off, or at least temper, some of the more outrageous articles written about Dubai over that period. It might also have meant that some of the inaccuracies we've seen could have been avoided.
We had years of fawning stories from 'journalists' flown in by Emirates for two or three days, lodged at Emirates Towers or Madinat Jumeirah and given a whistle-stop tour of New Dubai. Their excited, breathless reports were often way over-the-top and all too often carried rumours as fact and too many inaccuracies. Enthusing about the city's traditional souks having seen only Madinat Jumeirah for example.
I suspect it was all simply accepted here because it was positive publicity, but if so that was naive. The western media delights in setting up then chopping down and all that hyperbole was setting Dubai up.
Inevitably, more recently we've seen the other extreme from them, moving from everything's wonderful and perfect to everything's bad and evil.
Had DMAO been in place maybe a more reasonable, accurate course could have been steered than the two extremes we've seen.
With so many negative stories having appeared recently the DMAO starts on the back foot but by being honest, transparent, easily accessible and providing hard facts the situation can be turned around.
The appointment of Mona Al Merri as CEO is good on two counts. One, she has the background and experience the position needs. Two, the simple fact that a female is in the position in itself answers one of the criticisms often directed at the area.
I like some of her comments:
"Dubai Brand will furnish media organisations with solid figures about business activities in the emirate and will make sure to reflect the true picture about what is happening in the country," she said.Dubai Brand is committed to making the access to information easier and elminating speculation about activities in the country.
"The establishment of Dubai Brand is part of a general policy to ensure transparency in all aspects in Dubai."
Solid figures, true picture, transparency, information - I like words like that.
I also agreed with what Gulf News had to say in an editorial today:
Brand Dubai must at all times be careful to ensure that its dealings with the media and others are honest and credible and that its efforts to protect and promote the image of the emirate do not descend into unhelpful propaganda. The success of Brand Dubai will depend on it promoting the emirate's achievements and being honest about its challenges.
She'll have her work cut out though and I'm sure she'll meet some resistance from businesses and officials, but Sheikh Mohammed's backing will help enormously.
Articles from which I've quoted:
Dubai Media Affairs Office created.
GN Editorial.
Had it been it may have been able to head off, or at least temper, some of the more outrageous articles written about Dubai over that period. It might also have meant that some of the inaccuracies we've seen could have been avoided.
We had years of fawning stories from 'journalists' flown in by Emirates for two or three days, lodged at Emirates Towers or Madinat Jumeirah and given a whistle-stop tour of New Dubai. Their excited, breathless reports were often way over-the-top and all too often carried rumours as fact and too many inaccuracies. Enthusing about the city's traditional souks having seen only Madinat Jumeirah for example.
I suspect it was all simply accepted here because it was positive publicity, but if so that was naive. The western media delights in setting up then chopping down and all that hyperbole was setting Dubai up.
Inevitably, more recently we've seen the other extreme from them, moving from everything's wonderful and perfect to everything's bad and evil.
Had DMAO been in place maybe a more reasonable, accurate course could have been steered than the two extremes we've seen.
With so many negative stories having appeared recently the DMAO starts on the back foot but by being honest, transparent, easily accessible and providing hard facts the situation can be turned around.
The appointment of Mona Al Merri as CEO is good on two counts. One, she has the background and experience the position needs. Two, the simple fact that a female is in the position in itself answers one of the criticisms often directed at the area.
I like some of her comments:
"Dubai Brand will furnish media organisations with solid figures about business activities in the emirate and will make sure to reflect the true picture about what is happening in the country," she said.Dubai Brand is committed to making the access to information easier and elminating speculation about activities in the country.
"The establishment of Dubai Brand is part of a general policy to ensure transparency in all aspects in Dubai."
Solid figures, true picture, transparency, information - I like words like that.
I also agreed with what Gulf News had to say in an editorial today:
Brand Dubai must at all times be careful to ensure that its dealings with the media and others are honest and credible and that its efforts to protect and promote the image of the emirate do not descend into unhelpful propaganda. The success of Brand Dubai will depend on it promoting the emirate's achievements and being honest about its challenges.
She'll have her work cut out though and I'm sure she'll meet some resistance from businesses and officials, but Sheikh Mohammed's backing will help enormously.
Articles from which I've quoted:
Dubai Media Affairs Office created.
GN Editorial.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Ebony & ivory
Gulf News today ran a press release from Al Fajer Properties saying that all its projects are on schedule.
They say they voluntarily asked for a construction audit to be carried out by a RERA-approved independent party.
Sounds boring I know, but stay with me.
The press release includes the information:
The results confirm that work on Phase 1 has neared 80 per cent completion and 15 per cent of construction has been completed on Phase 2 (including the Ebony and Ivory Towers) with work continuing.
That reference to Phase 2 is the important bit.
A week ago the UK newspaper The Independent ran an article headlined "Dubai property scandal claim emerges amid media blackout"
It's full of sensational accusations.
It claims that customers were misled into paying millions of dollars by the use of fake photographs, which showed construction of three buildings, purported to be Ebony 1, Ivory 1 and Ivory 2, up to the sixth storey. It says that the photographs were in fact of buildings on neighbouring plots and the three towers are actually empty holes in the ground.
It goes on to say that angry investors were in the city, they had alerted local and regional media and a press conference had been arranged. But it says the press conference was cancelled on a pretext, that there was a media blackout ordered by the authorities, that government officials ordered news agencies to 'pull' stories which were appearing on websites.
To add even more spice they include 'links to the ruling family of the UAE city-state' a couple of times in the article. The President of Al Fajer Properties is Sheikh Maktoum Bin Hasher Al Maktoum.
Now the PR battle is on.
Without, of course, any reference to the accusations, the company says the independent and approved auditors confirm that 15 per cent of this project's construction has been completed and work is continuing.
They say that The audit affirms that Al Fajer Properties have attained the highest level of transparency and is in full compliance with all Rera rules and regulations.
They also say that progress on the project will be available on the Rera website shortly.
I think this is a pretty good example of how a company should react in the face of such accusations.
Compare it with the usual principle used here of ignore it and it'll go away. Atlantis and the whale shark are a classic of the usual method.
Accusations have been made which the company faces head on. They enlist offical help in the shape of RERA, use independent and approved auditors, link in with the official RERA website.
Then they issue a well constructed press release covering all the points and including lots of positive comments. They also use it to not only align themselves with RERA but to remind us of the professional standing of RERA.
The ball is now firmly back in the court of the investors and The Independent.
It'll be an interesting story to follow.
What this PR doesn't do is answer the accusations of government interference, of media blackouts, of pulled stories. Nor should they, it's not a company's responsibility to answer those accusations, but I'd like that side of it to see the light of day.
If you'd like to start at the beginning, The Independent has the story by 'Heerkani Chohan', "the pseudonym of a journalist living and working in Dubai". That story is here.
Al Fajer's answer to the accusations is here in Gulf News.
They say they voluntarily asked for a construction audit to be carried out by a RERA-approved independent party.
Sounds boring I know, but stay with me.
The press release includes the information:
The results confirm that work on Phase 1 has neared 80 per cent completion and 15 per cent of construction has been completed on Phase 2 (including the Ebony and Ivory Towers) with work continuing.
That reference to Phase 2 is the important bit.
A week ago the UK newspaper The Independent ran an article headlined "Dubai property scandal claim emerges amid media blackout"
It's full of sensational accusations.
It claims that customers were misled into paying millions of dollars by the use of fake photographs, which showed construction of three buildings, purported to be Ebony 1, Ivory 1 and Ivory 2, up to the sixth storey. It says that the photographs were in fact of buildings on neighbouring plots and the three towers are actually empty holes in the ground.
It goes on to say that angry investors were in the city, they had alerted local and regional media and a press conference had been arranged. But it says the press conference was cancelled on a pretext, that there was a media blackout ordered by the authorities, that government officials ordered news agencies to 'pull' stories which were appearing on websites.
To add even more spice they include 'links to the ruling family of the UAE city-state' a couple of times in the article. The President of Al Fajer Properties is Sheikh Maktoum Bin Hasher Al Maktoum.
Now the PR battle is on.
Without, of course, any reference to the accusations, the company says the independent and approved auditors confirm that 15 per cent of this project's construction has been completed and work is continuing.
They say that The audit affirms that Al Fajer Properties have attained the highest level of transparency and is in full compliance with all Rera rules and regulations.
They also say that progress on the project will be available on the Rera website shortly.
I think this is a pretty good example of how a company should react in the face of such accusations.
Compare it with the usual principle used here of ignore it and it'll go away. Atlantis and the whale shark are a classic of the usual method.
Accusations have been made which the company faces head on. They enlist offical help in the shape of RERA, use independent and approved auditors, link in with the official RERA website.
Then they issue a well constructed press release covering all the points and including lots of positive comments. They also use it to not only align themselves with RERA but to remind us of the professional standing of RERA.
The ball is now firmly back in the court of the investors and The Independent.
It'll be an interesting story to follow.
What this PR doesn't do is answer the accusations of government interference, of media blackouts, of pulled stories. Nor should they, it's not a company's responsibility to answer those accusations, but I'd like that side of it to see the light of day.
If you'd like to start at the beginning, The Independent has the story by 'Heerkani Chohan', "the pseudonym of a journalist living and working in Dubai". That story is here.
Al Fajer's answer to the accusations is here in Gulf News.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Crystal Ball working well
A couple of days ago I located the Life in Dubai Crystal Ball at the back of a drawer, gave it a polish and the picture it showed me led me to write:
The temperature's rising and I expect to soon see photographs of effigies being burnt in the streets of Indian cities.
The old Crystal Ball is working well because today Reuters gives us this:
All major Aussie newspapers are running the photos so the climate is going to get worse in both countries, the extremists are jumping on the bandwagon, the real danger is an escalation of violence.
I tend to agree with the comments of Dr. Yadu Singh in Australia, reported in the Sydney Morning Herald.
The Indian media's coverage of the plight of Indian students in Australia has been "irresponsible" and could backfire on Indians who have lived here for years, a local community leader fears.
Yadu Singh, a Sydney cardiologist, has viewed with growing anger the pronouncements about Australia by the Indian press, after violence against Indian students in Sydney and Melbourne came under the spotlight last week.
Headlines such as "Australia, land of racists" have led to loud street protests in Australia and India, with an effigy of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd set alight in India.
Dr Singh, who heads a committee at the Indian consulate looking at Indian student issues, labelled the reporting "irresponsible".
"There is a problem with Indian media and Indian leadership - they can't assess a situation in a rational way," he said.
"It's the high competition in that industry. They all get on the bandwagon and say 'Oh racism', but it's not like that.
"Something like this happens and they think: 'The whole world is against us.' I mean, burning effigies of Kevin Rudd ... come on.
"This is not a racist country. Every country has one or two racists.
"When Australian [missionary] Graham Staines was burnt to death [by Hindu extremists in January 1999], did everyone call India racist? No."
Dr Singh believed Australians were "outraged with the way Indian media" was smearing the country.
He feared the outrage could mask the genuine issues faced by Indian students, who Dr Singh said were over-represented in robbery statistics in Melbourne and also faced exploitation by employers.
He also feared there could be a backlash against other Australians of Indian heritage, many of whom had lived here for years.
"I was at a function last night with other Indians [well-established in Australia] - other doctors and lawyers - we were all saying this game has to stop," Dr Singh said.
"We are not suffering. We are doing well in Australia."
Street muggings are deplorable, more so in my opinion when they're racially motivated. But so is whipping up hysteria just to increase newspaper sales or to further a political agenda.
Sydney Morning Herald report is here.
The temperature's rising and I expect to soon see photographs of effigies being burnt in the streets of Indian cities.
The old Crystal Ball is working well because today Reuters gives us this:
All major Aussie newspapers are running the photos so the climate is going to get worse in both countries, the extremists are jumping on the bandwagon, the real danger is an escalation of violence.
I tend to agree with the comments of Dr. Yadu Singh in Australia, reported in the Sydney Morning Herald.
The Indian media's coverage of the plight of Indian students in Australia has been "irresponsible" and could backfire on Indians who have lived here for years, a local community leader fears.
Yadu Singh, a Sydney cardiologist, has viewed with growing anger the pronouncements about Australia by the Indian press, after violence against Indian students in Sydney and Melbourne came under the spotlight last week.
Headlines such as "Australia, land of racists" have led to loud street protests in Australia and India, with an effigy of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd set alight in India.
Dr Singh, who heads a committee at the Indian consulate looking at Indian student issues, labelled the reporting "irresponsible".
"There is a problem with Indian media and Indian leadership - they can't assess a situation in a rational way," he said.
"It's the high competition in that industry. They all get on the bandwagon and say 'Oh racism', but it's not like that.
"Something like this happens and they think: 'The whole world is against us.' I mean, burning effigies of Kevin Rudd ... come on.
"This is not a racist country. Every country has one or two racists.
"When Australian [missionary] Graham Staines was burnt to death [by Hindu extremists in January 1999], did everyone call India racist? No."
Dr Singh believed Australians were "outraged with the way Indian media" was smearing the country.
He feared the outrage could mask the genuine issues faced by Indian students, who Dr Singh said were over-represented in robbery statistics in Melbourne and also faced exploitation by employers.
He also feared there could be a backlash against other Australians of Indian heritage, many of whom had lived here for years.
"I was at a function last night with other Indians [well-established in Australia] - other doctors and lawyers - we were all saying this game has to stop," Dr Singh said.
"We are not suffering. We are doing well in Australia."
Street muggings are deplorable, more so in my opinion when they're racially motivated. But so is whipping up hysteria just to increase newspaper sales or to further a political agenda.
Sydney Morning Herald report is here.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The value of a free press
History's being made in London and it's all down to the freedom of the press.
The Daily Telegraph, not a tabloid but a top quality broadsheet, has been releasing details of MPs ripping off the tax payers. The effects, which haven't ended yet by any means, are wide ranging, inluding one that hasn't happened since 1695, the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Commons.
It may not sound much but it really is a momentous event, a once-in-three hundred years event.
It's also led to various MPs being disciplined, and more than a few will be thrown out - if they dare to stand - by disgusted voters at the next election.
It's also led to the Prime Minister having to promise to change something else that's annoyed and upset voters over the years. There's long been anger at MPs having their snouts in the trough, more so that they controlled how much of taxpayers' money went into the trough.
Now the PM says there will be an independent outside body overseeing MPs expenses and allowances. That is many years overdue in my opinion, and not just in the UK. We have a similar problem in Australia with MPs voting themselves regular large salary increases, for example, while telling the voters to tighten their belts.
Lack of regulation and oversight, allowing people to do what they want, causes major problems, as the world now realises with the financial excesses of the past decade.
Controlling it all themselves British MPs have been claiming for mortgages which didn't exist, for cleaning swimming pools and even moats around country houses, for a home cinema and televisions, for gardeners - there were even claims for items as small and inexpensive as feather dusters and ice cube trays - and a trouser press and an electronic tooth flosser.
They've been fighting the media off for years, blocking moves to make the truth public through the Freedom of Information Act, but now a whistle blower has provided the Telegraph with a disc containing the information.
Without a free press the rip offs would have continued, and that's the real value of a free press - keeping those in power honest.
You can read about it, and some of the bizarre claims made, in this section of The Daily Telegraph.
The Daily Telegraph, not a tabloid but a top quality broadsheet, has been releasing details of MPs ripping off the tax payers. The effects, which haven't ended yet by any means, are wide ranging, inluding one that hasn't happened since 1695, the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Commons.
It may not sound much but it really is a momentous event, a once-in-three hundred years event.
It's also led to various MPs being disciplined, and more than a few will be thrown out - if they dare to stand - by disgusted voters at the next election.
It's also led to the Prime Minister having to promise to change something else that's annoyed and upset voters over the years. There's long been anger at MPs having their snouts in the trough, more so that they controlled how much of taxpayers' money went into the trough.
Now the PM says there will be an independent outside body overseeing MPs expenses and allowances. That is many years overdue in my opinion, and not just in the UK. We have a similar problem in Australia with MPs voting themselves regular large salary increases, for example, while telling the voters to tighten their belts.
Lack of regulation and oversight, allowing people to do what they want, causes major problems, as the world now realises with the financial excesses of the past decade.
Controlling it all themselves British MPs have been claiming for mortgages which didn't exist, for cleaning swimming pools and even moats around country houses, for a home cinema and televisions, for gardeners - there were even claims for items as small and inexpensive as feather dusters and ice cube trays - and a trouser press and an electronic tooth flosser.
They've been fighting the media off for years, blocking moves to make the truth public through the Freedom of Information Act, but now a whistle blower has provided the Telegraph with a disc containing the information.
Without a free press the rip offs would have continued, and that's the real value of a free press - keeping those in power honest.
You can read about it, and some of the bizarre claims made, in this section of The Daily Telegraph.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The Hari article, an opportunity lost
To its credit The Independent has given space to Sultan Al Qassimi for a right-of-reply to Johann Hari's now infamous earlier piece on Dubai.
Sadly, Sultan has chosen to take the worst possible route.
He had the opportunity to point out that Johann's article represented only a tiny part of Dubai, that he interviewed the worst-behaved expats he could find and presented their behaviour as the norm, that the article contained more than a few inaccuracies and some questionable claims.
He had the opportunity to present a more balanced picture of Dubai while accepting that there are indeed problems to be resolved.
Instead, Sultan decided to run a similar attack to Hari's, concentrating solely on the worst elements of British society, past and present.
What a lost opportunity.
You can read Sultan's article here.
Sadly, Sultan has chosen to take the worst possible route.
He had the opportunity to point out that Johann's article represented only a tiny part of Dubai, that he interviewed the worst-behaved expats he could find and presented their behaviour as the norm, that the article contained more than a few inaccuracies and some questionable claims.
He had the opportunity to present a more balanced picture of Dubai while accepting that there are indeed problems to be resolved.
Instead, Sultan decided to run a similar attack to Hari's, concentrating solely on the worst elements of British society, past and present.
What a lost opportunity.
You can read Sultan's article here.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Catching people's interest
It's fascinating which stories catch people's attention.
The latest example is Johann Hari's piece in The Independent - another in the increasing number of articles called 'dark side of Dubai'. Not only is Johann's article being quoted or reprinted around the world, the blogosphere is buzzing with it too.
I commented on the article on Tuesday and the traffic to 'Life in Dubai' has trebled, the majority of the additional visitors arriving at that posting.
Not since my piece on Andy and the Redundancy Porsche has one of my postings attracted so much interest.
Yesterday the New York Times Freakanomics column reported on and linked to The Independent's article, and they also link to 'Life in Dubai' saying: "It’s the dark side of Dubai, though at least one Dubai-based blogger thinks the piece is overkill."
It's obviously attracted their readers' interest because several hundred of them so far have hit the link to come here. A random check tells me they're from all over the world - throughout the US and Europe, from Canada, across Asia, the sub-Continent, even Dubai.
(Welcome NYT readers, I read your paper every day so it's nice to have you here too).
I'm also getting more visitors than usual arriving onto that posting from sites such as Dubizzle, where it's also attracting many more comments than my other posts.
From Los Angeles, Xeni Jardin posts Johann's article on on BoingBoing, which is also attracting a lot of comments, and an anonymous commenter says "Another counterpoint to this article:" followed by a link to my posting. Visitors are starting to arrive from that too.
Blogging from Norway, Paul Chaffey talks about and links to the article. He also links to my post about it and, again, that's attracting visitors.
I suppose the activity reflects a number of things. The interest there is in Dubai all around the world. The fascination people have with bad news stories. The popularity of the current bash-Dubai bandwagon. The tall poppy syndrome.
As a passing thought, I'm pleased that commentators are not only linking to the original story but are also linking to pages which are critical of it, such as mine in which I wrote about the pre-determined bias of the article and its sloppy journalism.
Whatever the story, we need to be aware of both sides of it. With that thought you may be interested in other sides of the story relating to Johann's article, and to the equally well-reported BBC Panorama programme on construction labour camps.
Sultan Al Qassimi says his words were "taken out of context and butchered" in the article. That he was wearing a 'Ralph Lauren shirt' was a figment of the writer's imagination he says, a small detail but it does suggest embellishment for effect.
You can read his response in here, in Arabian Business.
I'd also be interested to hear from friends of the Canadian Karen who according to the first section of the article has been living in her Range Rover in a car park for several months. Or from these people or their friends: 'All over the city, there are maxed-out expats sleeping secretly in the sand-dunes or the airport or in their cars'.
It would be nice to verify the claims, to find out the full story, establish the truth.
Then there was the BBC programme about the way workers are treated by Arabtec, one of our larger construction companies. The CEO has also been in Arabian Business disputing the allegations. That rebuttal you can read here.
Your reaction may well be 'well he would say that wouldn't he'. So who do you believe? I suppose the truth may be somewhere in the middle, as it so often is.
The latest example is Johann Hari's piece in The Independent - another in the increasing number of articles called 'dark side of Dubai'. Not only is Johann's article being quoted or reprinted around the world, the blogosphere is buzzing with it too.
I commented on the article on Tuesday and the traffic to 'Life in Dubai' has trebled, the majority of the additional visitors arriving at that posting.
Not since my piece on Andy and the Redundancy Porsche has one of my postings attracted so much interest.
Yesterday the New York Times Freakanomics column reported on and linked to The Independent's article, and they also link to 'Life in Dubai' saying: "It’s the dark side of Dubai, though at least one Dubai-based blogger thinks the piece is overkill."
It's obviously attracted their readers' interest because several hundred of them so far have hit the link to come here. A random check tells me they're from all over the world - throughout the US and Europe, from Canada, across Asia, the sub-Continent, even Dubai.
(Welcome NYT readers, I read your paper every day so it's nice to have you here too).
I'm also getting more visitors than usual arriving onto that posting from sites such as Dubizzle, where it's also attracting many more comments than my other posts.
From Los Angeles, Xeni Jardin posts Johann's article on on BoingBoing, which is also attracting a lot of comments, and an anonymous commenter says "Another counterpoint to this article:" followed by a link to my posting. Visitors are starting to arrive from that too.
Blogging from Norway, Paul Chaffey talks about and links to the article. He also links to my post about it and, again, that's attracting visitors.
I suppose the activity reflects a number of things. The interest there is in Dubai all around the world. The fascination people have with bad news stories. The popularity of the current bash-Dubai bandwagon. The tall poppy syndrome.
As a passing thought, I'm pleased that commentators are not only linking to the original story but are also linking to pages which are critical of it, such as mine in which I wrote about the pre-determined bias of the article and its sloppy journalism.
Whatever the story, we need to be aware of both sides of it. With that thought you may be interested in other sides of the story relating to Johann's article, and to the equally well-reported BBC Panorama programme on construction labour camps.
Sultan Al Qassimi says his words were "taken out of context and butchered" in the article. That he was wearing a 'Ralph Lauren shirt' was a figment of the writer's imagination he says, a small detail but it does suggest embellishment for effect.
You can read his response in here, in Arabian Business.
I'd also be interested to hear from friends of the Canadian Karen who according to the first section of the article has been living in her Range Rover in a car park for several months. Or from these people or their friends: 'All over the city, there are maxed-out expats sleeping secretly in the sand-dunes or the airport or in their cars'.
It would be nice to verify the claims, to find out the full story, establish the truth.
Then there was the BBC programme about the way workers are treated by Arabtec, one of our larger construction companies. The CEO has also been in Arabian Business disputing the allegations. That rebuttal you can read here.
Your reaction may well be 'well he would say that wouldn't he'. So who do you believe? I suppose the truth may be somewhere in the middle, as it so often is.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
The most vitriolic piece on Dubai so far
Today's UK paper The Independent has a story jumping on the new Dubai-bashing bandwagon and it's the most vitriolic I've seen so far.
At least the writer appears to have spent some time here, unlike many of the previous commentators, but it's obvious that the objective was simply to find the worst possible angle and seek out the worst possible examples.
It's biased, has no balance, has plenty of inaccuracies. It raises some valid points about things that need attention - treatment of labourers, bankruptcy laws, enforcement of the laws and the like. But to get those points across he crosses the line of responsible journalism.
It's so full of highly doubtful and downright untrue claims that it detracts from the the important issues he talks about.
He's painting a word picture to create an impression of the city that supports how he wants to project it. Lots of little comments, the implicit suggestion that the people he includes are the norm, emotive words thrown in, quotes from people which in themselves are unimportant and, worse, are simply untrue, but they're included because they add to the word picture. It's all to create the pre-determined bad impression.
There was no need, he could have stayed with the facts and discussed the things that need changing in responsible way. The vitriol is undisguised.
Here's what I mean by the word picture he's painting.
The first two sentences start to give the game away - the claim that Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid's "...image is displayed on every other building, sandwiched between the more familiar corporate rictuses of Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders.
On every other building? The truth is that the image is not even on one in a thousand buildings.
And I wonder whether he's noticed how many portraits of the Queen there are around London.
He reports on a group of Brits in the Double Decker bar - but if he did indeed come across this behaviour he's obviously been at pains to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
"As I enter, a girl in a short skirt collapses out of the door onto her back. A guy wearing a pirate hat helps her to her feet, dropping his beer bottle with a paralytic laugh.
I start to talk to two sun-dried women in their sixties who have been getting gently sozzled since midday.
...an Essex boy shouts at me in response, as he tries to put a pair of comedy antlers on his head while pouring some beer into the mouth of his friend, who is lying on his back on the floor, gurning.
Questionable. I seriously doubt whether the bouncers would have allowed that behaviour.
Nevertheless there are badly-behaved expats in town - the yob culture exported. But Hari doesn't bother to point out that the excesses of a few are outweighed by hundreds of thousands of extremely hard working expats, from Britain as well as the rest of the world. Hundreds of thousands who are working hard and saving, putting their children through school, supporting extended families, who know how to behave.
In a mall he 'approached a blonde 17-year-old Dutch girl wandering around in hotpants' to get her opinion - but he was at pains not to approach any of the hundreds of families with kids in pushchairs or carrying their weekly groceries to ask for their opinions. Balance is not a word that comes to mind about in his interviewing.
There's the highly dubious story about 'Karen Andrews' who has supposedly been living for months in her Range Rover in the car park of an international hotel.
That leads to Mr Hari's ridiculous claim that "All over the city, there are maxed-out expats sleeping secretly in the sand-dunes or the airport or in their cars."
Absolutely untrue. People living in the departure lounge of the international airport? That's the only part of the terminals they can get in to. Think about it, do you think Security would allow that? And sleeping in the sand dunes in the city. Sand dunes in the city? The only people sleeping in the sand dunes in the desert are people on weekend camping trips.
He reports on the construction scene:
"The World is empty. It has been abandoned, its continents unfinished.
All over Dubai, crazy projects that were Under Construction are now Under Collapse. They were building an air-conditioned beach here, with cooling pipes running below the sand, so the super-rich didn't singe their toes on their way from towel to sea."
In reality The World hasn't been abandoned, projects are not 'under collapse' and the chilled beach was not a Dubai creation but was the private Versace hotel floating an outrageous idea to gauge reaction. It won't happen.
There's no mention of the hundreds of projects, both residential and commercial, which are finished, occupied and successful.
Even the section on the terrible conditions at some of the labour camps is highly selective. There are thousands of labourers, and others at the bottom of the social ladder, who do not live in these conditions and are happy with their lot. Money sent home to keep an extended family, to educate children and more than a few are considered wealthy in their home countries.
He brings up the water question.
"Dubai drinks the sea. The Emirates' water is stripped of salt in vast desalination plants around the Gulf – making it the most expensive water on earth. It costs more than petrol to produce, and belches vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as it goes."
Over 120 countries have desalination plants, there are over 13,000 operating around the world, yet it's presented as though Dubai is unique in desalinating water.
He's been at pains to search out disgruntled expats and quote their comments, true of false.
One section is even headed 'Fake plastic trees', picking up on a quote from a disgruntled Filipina. Another untrue claim because the trees are real. Nor is the water fake, as she also complains. Fake water? What's fake water?
It's the language barrier, she doesn't mean fake but it's been included because it adds to the picture. Most trees are not growing naturally, but that's not 'fake' - they've been planted as street landscaping and in parks. Just like cities all over the world.
"...a Filipino girl tells me it is "terrifying" for her to wander the malls in Dubai because Filipino maids or nannies always sneak away from the family they are with and beg her for help. "They say – 'Please, I am being held prisoner, they don't let me call home, they make me work every waking hour seven days a week.'
"Always" is a strong word. No question that some families mistreat some maids, but the vast majority are not badly treated, are not prisoners. I know plenty of Filipinas and they're not harrassed by desperate countrywomen leading for help. In fact it's normal for them to ask whether we can give their friends and relatives back home a job in Dubai!
This maids theme is another he gives a false impression about. "...one theme unites every expat I speak to: their joy at having staff to do the work that would clog their lives up Back Home. Everyone, it seems, has a maid"
Again it's simply not true. Again he was very selective in the people he chose to interview.
"Between the malls, there is nothing but the connecting tissue of asphalt." More that's untrue. The malls are kilometres apart and in between them there's the usual cityscape - apartments, villas, commercial premises, office blocks, factories, strip shopping. Dubai is a working, trading, bustling city of over a million people.
"The roads are all four lanes" he declares as part of the word picture. No they're not.
"The residents of Dubai flit from mall to mall by car or taxis"
He must have missed the city, where the footpaths are full of Dubai residents walking around. In summer of course people stay out of the heat and humidity as much as they can, just as in the UK they try to avoid the worst of the winter weather. But the city is for walking. New Dubai isn't, it wasn't built that way any more than Los Angeles was.
As I've said before, I have no problem with articles which are critical of Dubai, which point out issues which need addressing, but I do object to sloppy journalism and biased reporting.
The over-the-top fawning articles we had up to a few months ago extolling the virtues of the miracle of Dubai were just as bad. Again there was no balance and they set it up as a tall poppy which inevitably was going to be chopped down.
Dubai has appointed a PR company in London to handle the emirate's financial image. There's an urgent need to hire one to handle the wider Brand Dubai image to get some balance, some context and perspective into the picture. It's a pity it wasn't done much earlier because now it's rapidly becoming an exercise in damage control. Having worked in PR I can tell you that's the worst possible place to start.
Thanks to Grace over at Sandier Pastures for the heads up. You can read the article in full and see if you agree with me here.
Oh, and you can check out photos and reviews of Double Decker bar for yourself at Time Out Dubai, here. You won't recognise it as the same place described in Hari's article.
And if you want to see what Dubai really looks like rather than the completely and deliberately inaccurate picture conjoured up by Johann Hari, click on the appropriate labels here on this blog.
At least the writer appears to have spent some time here, unlike many of the previous commentators, but it's obvious that the objective was simply to find the worst possible angle and seek out the worst possible examples.
It's biased, has no balance, has plenty of inaccuracies. It raises some valid points about things that need attention - treatment of labourers, bankruptcy laws, enforcement of the laws and the like. But to get those points across he crosses the line of responsible journalism.
It's so full of highly doubtful and downright untrue claims that it detracts from the the important issues he talks about.
He's painting a word picture to create an impression of the city that supports how he wants to project it. Lots of little comments, the implicit suggestion that the people he includes are the norm, emotive words thrown in, quotes from people which in themselves are unimportant and, worse, are simply untrue, but they're included because they add to the word picture. It's all to create the pre-determined bad impression.
There was no need, he could have stayed with the facts and discussed the things that need changing in responsible way. The vitriol is undisguised.
Here's what I mean by the word picture he's painting.
The first two sentences start to give the game away - the claim that Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid's "...image is displayed on every other building, sandwiched between the more familiar corporate rictuses of Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders.
On every other building? The truth is that the image is not even on one in a thousand buildings.
And I wonder whether he's noticed how many portraits of the Queen there are around London.
He reports on a group of Brits in the Double Decker bar - but if he did indeed come across this behaviour he's obviously been at pains to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
"As I enter, a girl in a short skirt collapses out of the door onto her back. A guy wearing a pirate hat helps her to her feet, dropping his beer bottle with a paralytic laugh.
I start to talk to two sun-dried women in their sixties who have been getting gently sozzled since midday.
...an Essex boy shouts at me in response, as he tries to put a pair of comedy antlers on his head while pouring some beer into the mouth of his friend, who is lying on his back on the floor, gurning.
Questionable. I seriously doubt whether the bouncers would have allowed that behaviour.
Nevertheless there are badly-behaved expats in town - the yob culture exported. But Hari doesn't bother to point out that the excesses of a few are outweighed by hundreds of thousands of extremely hard working expats, from Britain as well as the rest of the world. Hundreds of thousands who are working hard and saving, putting their children through school, supporting extended families, who know how to behave.
In a mall he 'approached a blonde 17-year-old Dutch girl wandering around in hotpants' to get her opinion - but he was at pains not to approach any of the hundreds of families with kids in pushchairs or carrying their weekly groceries to ask for their opinions. Balance is not a word that comes to mind about in his interviewing.
There's the highly dubious story about 'Karen Andrews' who has supposedly been living for months in her Range Rover in the car park of an international hotel.
That leads to Mr Hari's ridiculous claim that "All over the city, there are maxed-out expats sleeping secretly in the sand-dunes or the airport or in their cars."
Absolutely untrue. People living in the departure lounge of the international airport? That's the only part of the terminals they can get in to. Think about it, do you think Security would allow that? And sleeping in the sand dunes in the city. Sand dunes in the city? The only people sleeping in the sand dunes in the desert are people on weekend camping trips.
He reports on the construction scene:
"The World is empty. It has been abandoned, its continents unfinished.
All over Dubai, crazy projects that were Under Construction are now Under Collapse. They were building an air-conditioned beach here, with cooling pipes running below the sand, so the super-rich didn't singe their toes on their way from towel to sea."
In reality The World hasn't been abandoned, projects are not 'under collapse' and the chilled beach was not a Dubai creation but was the private Versace hotel floating an outrageous idea to gauge reaction. It won't happen.
There's no mention of the hundreds of projects, both residential and commercial, which are finished, occupied and successful.
Even the section on the terrible conditions at some of the labour camps is highly selective. There are thousands of labourers, and others at the bottom of the social ladder, who do not live in these conditions and are happy with their lot. Money sent home to keep an extended family, to educate children and more than a few are considered wealthy in their home countries.
He brings up the water question.
"Dubai drinks the sea. The Emirates' water is stripped of salt in vast desalination plants around the Gulf – making it the most expensive water on earth. It costs more than petrol to produce, and belches vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as it goes."
Over 120 countries have desalination plants, there are over 13,000 operating around the world, yet it's presented as though Dubai is unique in desalinating water.
He's been at pains to search out disgruntled expats and quote their comments, true of false.
One section is even headed 'Fake plastic trees', picking up on a quote from a disgruntled Filipina. Another untrue claim because the trees are real. Nor is the water fake, as she also complains. Fake water? What's fake water?
It's the language barrier, she doesn't mean fake but it's been included because it adds to the picture. Most trees are not growing naturally, but that's not 'fake' - they've been planted as street landscaping and in parks. Just like cities all over the world.
"...a Filipino girl tells me it is "terrifying" for her to wander the malls in Dubai because Filipino maids or nannies always sneak away from the family they are with and beg her for help. "They say – 'Please, I am being held prisoner, they don't let me call home, they make me work every waking hour seven days a week.'
"Always" is a strong word. No question that some families mistreat some maids, but the vast majority are not badly treated, are not prisoners. I know plenty of Filipinas and they're not harrassed by desperate countrywomen leading for help. In fact it's normal for them to ask whether we can give their friends and relatives back home a job in Dubai!
This maids theme is another he gives a false impression about. "...one theme unites every expat I speak to: their joy at having staff to do the work that would clog their lives up Back Home. Everyone, it seems, has a maid"
Again it's simply not true. Again he was very selective in the people he chose to interview.
"Between the malls, there is nothing but the connecting tissue of asphalt." More that's untrue. The malls are kilometres apart and in between them there's the usual cityscape - apartments, villas, commercial premises, office blocks, factories, strip shopping. Dubai is a working, trading, bustling city of over a million people.
"The roads are all four lanes" he declares as part of the word picture. No they're not.
"The residents of Dubai flit from mall to mall by car or taxis"
He must have missed the city, where the footpaths are full of Dubai residents walking around. In summer of course people stay out of the heat and humidity as much as they can, just as in the UK they try to avoid the worst of the winter weather. But the city is for walking. New Dubai isn't, it wasn't built that way any more than Los Angeles was.
As I've said before, I have no problem with articles which are critical of Dubai, which point out issues which need addressing, but I do object to sloppy journalism and biased reporting.
The over-the-top fawning articles we had up to a few months ago extolling the virtues of the miracle of Dubai were just as bad. Again there was no balance and they set it up as a tall poppy which inevitably was going to be chopped down.
Dubai has appointed a PR company in London to handle the emirate's financial image. There's an urgent need to hire one to handle the wider Brand Dubai image to get some balance, some context and perspective into the picture. It's a pity it wasn't done much earlier because now it's rapidly becoming an exercise in damage control. Having worked in PR I can tell you that's the worst possible place to start.
Thanks to Grace over at Sandier Pastures for the heads up. You can read the article in full and see if you agree with me here.
Oh, and you can check out photos and reviews of Double Decker bar for yourself at Time Out Dubai, here. You won't recognise it as the same place described in Hari's article.
And if you want to see what Dubai really looks like rather than the completely and deliberately inaccurate picture conjoured up by Johann Hari, click on the appropriate labels here on this blog.
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