Monday, April 17, 2006

Wouldn't the truth be nice...

Here's yet another example of misinformation. There's been huge publicity about the plastic cups of 50fils tea being banned, surveys, reader comments, cafes will go bust, workers won't be able to afford tea, the sky's falling in...

After all that we get:

“Plastic cups have not been banned in Dubai and will continue to be in use. We have simply instructed cafeterias and other establishments selling food items not to use cups that are not meant for hot beverages, whether plastic or any other material,” said Khalid Sharief, Assistant Director of Public Health Department and Head of Food Control Section.
“If it were a ban on plastic cups, the circulars would not have been sent to cafeterias but to dealers and manufacturers of such cups. You can describe the initiative as one that regulates the use of food packaging,” he said.
KT


Why are we constantly being fed information that is later denied or changed? Is it the standard of 'journalism'? The incompetence of the 'journalists'? The language being unclear? Officials changing the story after adverse publicity?

3 comments:

grapeshisha said...

I think it is a combination of all those factors. Arabic is sometimes tricky to translate, but that's no excuse when you are reporting the news. I think it is just misinterpretation jumping to conclusion. Either way, Sheikha Lubna has said that when the New Competition Law is relaeased, there will be an official English translation. Maybe KT can get it right then!

nzm said...

Agreed.

It's all of the above.

Anonymous said...

A couple years ago, Dubai Municipality announced a ban on smoking in shopping malls. Of course, it completely changed the character of the Bur Juman food court. But a week later the smoking area was resurrected and DM subsequently denied there had been a ban on smoking - just a "publicity campaign" to reduce smoking.