Monday 4 February 2008

Once bitten, but not twice shy?

It seems the prodigal sons and daughters are flocking back to ITP like lambs to the slaughter. (Forgive the mixed metaphor, but it's apt.)

First, news broke that Alicia Buller was returning to ITP as managing editor of Arabian Business, where she was formerly features ed. Now Sean (Puffy) Cronin - ex-Construction Week editor, then Bloomberg - is leaving the newswire behind to head back into the ITP fold as editor of Arabian Business.

Both will be working under Anil Bhoyrul.

UPDATE: Apparently Alicia's off to join the Abu Dhabi paper now. Did she get a chance to warm her seat at ITP before joining the exodus?

REUPDATE: Alicia starts at Arabian Business tomorrow (Sunday) and was never heading to the Abu Dhabi paper - we were wrong and our source has been severely chastised. (Our willingness to publish a retraction is a bit of an alien concept in Dubai!)

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Makes sense why ITP would want them back - they were both pretty good.
Why they'd come back is a different matter. But there is something addictive about the Dubai lifestyle. I suppose it beats the real world.
Presumably the competition from Abu Dhabi meanms that ITP is having to pay more for new and re-hires these days...

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

troublemaker - please send to dubaimediablog at gmail.

Anonymous said...

I understand criticizing media companies - we all need a kick up the backside. However, 18:36 personal comment is neither funny nor relevant. It also shows a complete lack of class.

Anonymous said...

anon@0914: agreed.

anon_mediator said...

I know few of you think that we have a heart at DMO, but we do draw the occasional line in the sand (hence the deletion of the comment above, which joins a small but exclusive list of comments we felt weren't fair play).

Anonymous said...

So what's wrong with putting information that is in the public domain on the web? ITP's accounts and shareholders are documents publicly available in the UK. What lines are being crossed by that? It's called transparency and nobody should be afraid of it. Particularly journalists.

Anonymous said...

and why did admin email me and thank me for sending the docs?? very weird blog this....

Anonymous said...

Just to check, someone who leaves or is fired from a media company can be maligned, accused of mental health issues, and told to leave the country, right?(See about 500 previous posts on this site)

However, cracks about people who run the media companies are bang out of order. Particularly if it's about their family.

(Even when - and this is almost every publishing house - family members are also board members).

Just wanted to get the rules straight...

anon_mediator said...

unfortunately, we can't edit comments, just delete them.

The bit I thought crossed the line was the comment about a member of the media's family. We have tried to keep all comments here apart from ones that are defamatory or can't be proven; this one, while factually correct, was unnecessary and certainly didn't help the poster's argument.

The ITP accounts, shareholders and directorships are most definitely fair game, and will no doubt be the focus of a separate post, once we've figured out the scoop.

Anonymous said...

ITP are utterly ruthless and seemingly unaccountable. Mary Serafin (born in 1939) is a shareholder in ITP and on the board. Her husband, Robert Serafin (born in 1955), is also on the board and a shareholder. This information is on public documents in the UK. What's wrong with divulging that here?

Anonymous said...

I saw the posting before it was removed. On the whole, good for you for doing so. While it's legitimate to talk about company board members, this was about personal relationships, and somebody who's virtually a non-combatant at that..
I'm sure ITP likes to feel everybody hates them - let's not give them the moral high ground.
Nothing wrong with the posting with the personal line removed though...

Anonymous said...

It's hardly a 'scoop' - anyone in Dubai could get this info online for about 70 or 80AED. www.companieshouse.gov.uk

Anonymous said...

Well done for removing the post. I love this site when it talks about media; hate it when it picks on and gets personal about people who are not really involved - and certainly have no bearing on publishing in the region.

DMO - you showed your class.

Anonymous said...

Mary and Robert Serafin are both on the board of ITP and are clearly involved in the publishing business and media in Dubai. Their age difference is a conversation point that could reveal something about them. As they have both chosen to be publicly accountable by being shareholders and directors of a UK listed company they themselves made a decision to put this information in the public domain. That someone posting here chose to draw attention to it is hardly evidence of some moral decline.
If anyone would like a copy of UK ITP's profit and loss accounts, list of shareholders and directors and the list of directorships Serafin has held in the past please leave an email address here.

Anonymous said...

O6:24 is either disingenuous or obtuse. The particular part of the comment in question was not for enlightenment, but an embarrassingly poor attempt at humour.

Anonymous said...

And 0800's comments (among others here) are teeth grinding attempts at pious, sanctimonious morality.

Board members at ITP (which include Robert and Mary Serafin) have engaged in ruthless business practices for a long time, where they have used pretty much every low tactic in the book including personal attacks on ex-staff members.

That posters get on their high horses about a single bad taste joke directed at the same board members is quite laughable.

Anonymous said...

It´s a miracle there have been no personal comments made about the concept of "working under Anil Bhoyrul".

Anonymous said...

so why is Serafin's wife, who is old enough to be his mother, on the board of directors if he doesn't want comments to be made about that?

Anonymous said...

Hi DMO,

Just to clarify.... I am working at ITP, not the Abu Dhabi paper. Sean Cronin is indeed going to be the Arabian Business editor.

Thanks
Alicia

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Anonymous said...

I would say its probably a bit of both. ITP can be very difficult, very unhelpful and frustrating, but it has made people's careers and given them opportunities they would not get elsewhere.
However, I would say with a lot of people in ITP that its a case of big fish little pond. There are some good people there and if ITP isn't careful, it will lose them. Its already happening. Some of ITP's best people are on the way out. Not necessarily the big boys, but the needed ones. Watch this space. A lot of change in the ITP line up!

Jan said...

Is this the same Robert Serafin who was President of Glasgow Univ conservative club and was jailed for fraud in 1975 ?

Here's the article

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19751119&id=ZY5AAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2KQMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3187,4082979