News Cycles
I have been concerned of late about a fairly obvious shift in the point of view many media outlets are taking on coverage of Dubai. For a couple of years there has been a steady flow of positive articles from the "boomtown" perspective, focusing on the skyscrapers, malls, Arab miracle etc.. Yet as the DP World ports fiasco showed, the tide can turn quickly and such a shift in coverage is actually something that the media craves rather than resists. Unfortunately, the latest wave seems almost exclusively focused on the plight on unskilled laborers in the emirate. Even before the release of the recent Human Rights Watch Report, outlets from the New York Times to smaller blogs were giving this issue ample exposure. This Friday, the popular American news show 20/20 will broadcast an investigation into the issue. Being a more mainstream TV outlet, the angle of this broadcast can be extremely harmful to Dubai's image as it reaches a broader sector of American society, with less previous knowledge of the emirate and the big picture of things here. A freelance journalist friend summed the challenge up best when he asked me: "Think about a story I could do to come to Dubai. It can't be about fancy buildings, restaurants, construction sites or new malls. That angle is overplayed. Something different that sheds new light on the place." What is this new angle?
posted by Pearl of Dubai at 11:13 AM
3 Comments:
how about slave labour in the homes of the emirates (local and expat alike), or the sexual assaults and gang rapes in which the bastards never get punished, the hypocrisy of the vast closet-homosexuality cases, pedophiles, young boy camel jockies, the prostitution and sex trade, illegal animal trade, lack of animal rights, the lack of women and children's outreach gov't orgs., the absence of a proper orphanage,the rampant use of steroids among young males...sometimes its hard to see Dubai in a positive light when so much wrong is going unadressed...sometimes negative media brings about positive change don't you think?
True, I don't dispute the value of negative press in exposing injustices. However, my interest is about what policy adjustments can be made to address these problems and how they can be communicated abroad to maintain economic and social engagement with the city.
Policies? Here? They don't work here...there are always ways to bend rules here, and everyone knows it...that isn't going to change for a very long time...Dubai is built on wasta and everything that goes with it, if you ask me...economic and social engagement will be maintained no matter how negative the media gets, people love controversy- as long as the buildings and larger than life construction and projects continue, people will keep spending their money here, and talking about 'that place' in the middle east...I really think the American public isn't ready for Dubai yet, they need to get their geography down first, sad to say...
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