According to The National, the Khaleej Times will be given a (long overdue) overhaul. The paper reports that Rahul Sharma, formerly the Delhi editor of Hindustan Times, has been appointed as editor, with Didier Brun, former senior vice president at the International Herald Tribune (IHT), as chief executive.
With excellent distribution already in place (something The National struggled with in Dubai in the early days), and Dubai heavyweight financial backing, this is an interesting move. But can the Khaleej Times possibly survive without its glorious comment pieces pieces by Mohammed Galadari, or investigative reporting?
How will the new improved Khaleej Times sit in the existing media landscape? And what next for the increasingly dreadful Business 24-7? How will Gulf News fare? And what's the future of 7Days? Post your comments in the normal place.
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33 comments:
my heart bleeds for good ole patrick michael
what will he do now? such a good servant of that paper will he be able to given the respect he deserves
with the new editor coming from the Hindustan times it is clear that they will continue to publish in 'Jinglish' thus alienating people who wish to read English as a first language. qed the KT may well be redesigned however the target audience will remain the same and the subs base will continue to shrink ( less than 9,000). GN,7Days and the national will be laughing their heads off.
Galadari was banned from doing comment pieces more than a year ago
The National could do with an 'overhaul' as well after their calamitous front page howler in Monday's edition.
Please repeat 100 times "I must proof my pages, I must proof my pages.."
was that the use of 'jabberwocky' in a front page kicker? how much are those guys paid again?
Their ridiculous and unwaranted salaries swell their egos - shame it's not reflected in the product
The National has on page 6 of Tuesday's paper a headline 'Emirati jailed for assault' with a completely unrelated story of a man pleading not guilty to an offence.
Well done - keep up the good work...
please lay off The National. It has hired the best journalists from all over the world, it carries the best investigative reports, its op-ed page is the best and its features can even put NYT to shame. Trust me, The National is so good that within a few years it would overtake The IHT as the world's trusted newspaper.
yours sarci!!
Khaleej Times - Redesign your target audience profile and boring style of writing instead if you need any sane readers. Try the IHT for tips
criticism of the National is fair game, if the paper with "the best journalists from all over the world" continues to run with stupid mistakes
Given that KT and GN continue to print "letters" from schizophrenic individuals who dont make any sense and cant write even one logical sentence in their "letters", I dont see much of a future in them.....
New visa law
30 July 2008
THE new UAE law which was passed recently about visit visa is a matter of fact correct in every way. The UAE government orders to stop issuing visas to friends visiting friends; only relatives can, is justifiable enough. A drastic change for those who are already staying here; a disappointment for others who wishes to come here to work and live; a security for those who are threatened by national insecurity. The UAE is a nation whose laws and culture is based fundamentally on its religion. It cannot allow immorality to flourish at the expense of its national interest. So the curbs on foreigners, who sometimes bring malafide imports with them, is a welcome step.
- Anabelle Aguisanda Gonzales, Dubai
i'll go out on a limb and say that every newspaper and magazine in dubai has printed made-up letters at one stage or another.
Eudore Chand's 'tache is to be used as an environmental shield at the new Maktoum International Airport.
I'd go much further and say that virtually all letters published in magazines here are made up (newspapers I know from experience are largely genuine). It does beg the question, where do all the free pens/MPs players/shopping vouchers for the letter of the month go? Isn't that outright theft? Although I think most of the magazines here are guiltier of far greater crimes against publishing than that.
for those who missed the point, I was being sarcastic when I praised The National, which is why I called myself sarci.
By the way, I know from first-hand experience that even newspapers print made-up letters
Emirates Business 24/7 gets worse every day. 99% off the competent staff have left now, leaving Eudore "handy" Chand and his relatives/old associates running the paper. I expect that within a year or 2 EB 24/7 will die a death like its predecessor Emirates Toady.... I'm sure the likes of KT and the National will outlive it.
Chand - the single biggest chancer to ever have lasted in a journalism job - what a useless, pathetic yes man.
Sacked by Gulf News who saw through his complete lack of talent.
Best suited to a labouring job at Jebel Ali if he could stop tripping over his own moustache
If, as you claim, 99% of those who left were competent then how come Emirates Today folded? Why werent they able to make it a successful newspaper? And if they were so competent, then how come most of them are either working in the media city in one of those leaflets, which they pass off as magazines, or are working in the supplements department in gulf news...very competent indeed.
the only people who could be called competent went to the national.
Because Eudore Chand was there putting Sheiks on the front page?
yes, of course, i forgot eudore is to be blamed.
by the way, i have heard that your magazine's circulation has reached double figures. i am sure you must be very happy to work in such a prestigious, well-known publication.
Eudore's tache travelled on the A380 superjumbo lately, apparently the only passenger aircraft large enough to accommodate it.
After being thoroughly impressed with the quality of The National, I decided to google information about the media in the region. I came across this page and have been reading it with some bemusement for a good while now.
For those of us sitting in North America who have quite a bit at stake in the Gulf -- I happen to be one of them -- seeing the ramblings on this page about the future of the media here strikes me as a bit ridiculous. Most of the people here bleating about the inconsequential errors such as "jabberwocky" (whatever that means) have no idea how valuable most of us in the business community have found publications like "The National".
For us, it has thoroughly trumped anything else out there about UAE, especially the business analyses regarding property and aviation.
The pity is that you guys who are arguing so much apparently can't see what is happening with your own industry. Who do YOU work for anyway?
Thanks for your "observations", I will be spending my time elsewhere.
Sidney, i'm guessing you are an employee of The National desperately trying to prop up the image of the paper!!!
p.s. dont worry, we wont miss you.
Oh give me a break. Like you have to work for The National to think it's great. I'm guessing you're someone who couldn't cut an interview with that publication.
So why do work in the UAE anyway if you hate it so much? I'd like to know. Really-really.
I think if KT can get it's act together it can give Good News a run for its money. Taking on The National however is a whole different ballgame and will require planning and an "open-ended" budget.
Where did I say I hate the UAE? In your eagerness to defend your newspaper you did not even read my post properly. No wonder the guys who work at The National failed to spot such a big blunder on Page 1. I am willing to bet anything that within a year or so that paper will be where Emirates Today was.
"my newspaper"? The National is not my newspaper and I'm not working there! :s Why the paranoia?
This blog is filled with complaints about working in the UAE which are not exactly discouraged here. Since you're making assumptions about, I'll assume you're a moderator upset about not getting a job at The National as well as the state of the country's publications. But although that's an interesting little subplot, that's not the most important thing:
I once interviewed a world-famous journalist. Who is is irrelevant. The point is that he told me that he has made factual mistakes under the pressure of deadlines. That so-and-so was not married when later he remembered dining with the guy and wife. So ... do I condemn this guy and say he's not a good journalist?
You can do whatever you want, but I'm not infallible and I'm certainly not going to go on about other people's mistakes if better people than me can admit having done so.
Respectfully, your going on for weeks about three lines of gibberish creeping into a page, even if it was a page one, seems a bit unrealistic. Nearly every publication I've been with has done the same at one time or another. We just print a correction and retract our statement.
Excessive condemnation about others doesn't serve us in the media community. I don't like what you're saying finding it a bit personally motivated (you're not denying you didn't get the job, right?) but neither do I like over-the-top condemnation of the people who blog here. Especially if they are not even journalists.
Let's look out for each other
love the way you say 'let's look out for each other' and arrogantly rub someone's nose in it for not getting a job at the national.
And if your copy is as badly written as your blog posting i am staggered you got a job anywhere.
The weekend edition of EB24/7 is not bad at all...
Yes of course it is - now go and cut and paste that press release
hey guys and girls and moderator. When you still keep the long dead Emirates Today on your media list instead of changing it to Emirates Business 24/7, it shows the quality of the state of media and media blogs in the UAE.
I agree that some of the people here who complain are the ones who did not get the jobs they wanted in the places they bitch about. Sweet.....
Those who talk of press releases obviously do not work in a newspaper and hence do not know about PR agencies who convince their clients not to talk to the press unless it is through a release or a meeting where the PR person will sit and interrupt with questions that they think the person should answer so that you use the quote that they want you to quote. or PR agencies who promise an interview and then ask for qts and then turn it into a press release and say that the person is out of town and then send the answers to your qts all around town including you.
I have read the comments on this site. I am waiting for some serious media threads and info exchange from from all ye posters, especially, the 'tache one. think he had a bitter experience with the man and has got an fixation.
Get real. Try boycotting press releases and syndicated news and then see what paper would survive here.
Have the guts?
government takeover of the Khaleej Times like Al Bayan and now Dubai's AMG Re launches Khaleej Times with new style of visual presentation
Given that KT and GN continue to print "letters" from schizophrenic individuals who dont make any sense and cant write even one logical sentence in their "letters", I dont see much of a future in them.....
New visa law
30 July 2008
THE new UAE law which was passed recently about visit visa is a matter of fact correct in every way. The UAE government orders to stop issuing visas to friends visiting friends; only relatives can, is justifiable enough. A drastic change for those who are already staying here; a disappointment for others who wishes to come here to work and live; a security for those who are threatened by national insecurity. The UAE is a nation whose laws and culture is based fundamentally on its religion. It cannot allow immorality to flourish at the expense of its national interest. So the curbs on foreigners, who sometimes bring malafide imports with them, is a welcome step.
- Anabelle Aguisanda Gonzales, Dubai
***************************************
If your "logical brain" don't find those statements above logical and yet bashing out KT and GN for publishing such letters from people who have the right to express their opinions, then I say, logic might have a new meaning!
I commend KT and GN for being open in publishing views from different people in all walks of life. Knowing that these people came from different backgrounds and so affects their motivations, KT and GN only proves that they do honor equality in the freedom of expression amongst their readers.
Schizos my dear are those who are like you... Labeling those whose brain you can't even comprehend. If that kind of thinking like yours is what you call logical... then, I wouldn't want to be logical at all!
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