R.I.P. E.E.P.

Time to put black armbands on
For the Emirates Evening Post is gone
It's finally given up the ghost
Let's bid adieu to the late great Post

Rumour mill in overdrive

This one is spreading like wildfire - apparently ITP is suing Haymarket through its UK presence over the loss of Campaign Middle East. Can anyone shed any light on the matter?

Parchment and quill, anyone?

It hasn't been a good day for technology here at DMO Towers. Firstly, we were very excited to hear that the Dubai Press Club had launched its website for the Arab Media Forum 2007. Until we realised that the website (dpcmediaforum.com) doesn't work.

Then, trying to read all about Etisalat's record profits (yes, du is really putting up a strong fight), DMO hacks were disappointed to see that not one of the links worked on the daily alert email from arabianbusiness.com.

Mirror Mirror on the IT Department Wall

ET hacks: all your computers are mirrored. And you didn't hear it from us. xxx

Bring back the Business Channel ....

There's a sentence I thought I would never utter, but faced with the banal offerings from Emirates News and City 7, it has left me with no option. Dubai is a city with global aspirations, yet its programming (in particular the news and business) is shameful.

I can't even bring myself to watch Emirates News any more, but I'm informed it is getting no better, despite the presence of newscaster Ramia Farrage, who has reached No.93 on Arabian Business' top 100 most powerful Arabs (on the basis of this, I'm not sure how she rates higher than the Qatar Airways' CEO, or even CNN's Hala Gorani).

And as for City 7: just three examples needed. That Woman's Show, which plunges to new depths ("the German carmaker, Skoda"); the weekend repeats of the weekday news programmes (news? current affairs?); and the superb bit of scheduling that puts an aerobics show on after midnight on a Thursday, when any exercise taking place in Dubai is likely to be of the drinking or horizonal variety.

The ghostly "freelancer"

Such a juicy nugget it deserves its own post (from an anon comment in the previous post):

there is this particular "editor" of a magazine who ghost writes articles for his own magazine and collects the payments through various accounts that he has created. this guy is an absolute genius. A master of download he ensures that he stays in his job by sucking up to his management and of course stabbing anyone who could remotely disturb his operations.

Well the journalists will all know who i am talking about .... he he .

Nice work if you can get it.

Trashing PR

So journalists hate PR people and never read their press releases. Or only print them if there's a decent gift attached.

Hands up then.

Which of you lot filter certain PR companies straight to trash?

And who goes to High Rise press conferences just to get iPods?