Tuesday 15 February 2011

Emirates 24/7 shift to Yellow Journalism

Emirates 24/7 business changed to Emirates 24/7 few months ago and has many offbeat stories embracing yellow journalism. Is this shift helping Emirates 24? www.emirates247.com/offbeat

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Most excellent!

My favourite is: "So what if you have herpes.. you can still date" or "Drugs turned me into a gay sex addict".

Anonymous said...

Are there no media people left in Dubai ? The activity on here would suggest that is the case . Is anyone being paid ?
British Embassy is issuing instructions in the event of evacuation being needed . Suggest everyone checks it out on the website .

Anonymous said...

Not much media in Dubai and what there is is of a low standard.

Anonymous said...

The person / people who used to run this site was / were from perfect. Many of the posts were a shambles, of unsourced gossip, prejudice, bile etc. Many of the comments were worse. But it was entertaining and occasionally informative. The site reflected the media in Dubai and the rest of the UAE. A patch of desert populated by camel riding nomads, fishermen and smugglers had become one of the world's most affluent countries because it sat on oil and gas reserves. Because it wanted to give the appearance that it was a democracy - kind of - because mega-rich locals wanted to be press barons and because there was so much money to waste on advertising (the advertisers advertised to each other) a huge media grew up. Young, often talented, hacks poured in. This site was one of the few outlets where they could let rip. The new person / people running it should understand that this site is meant to be mischievous. How are the local rags reporting the turmoil in Libya? What would they do if protests began in the UAE? (This is unlikely as most locals, white and Arab ex pats are doing nicely; only the slave labourers are unhappy and they live in crates in the desert, without access to the social networking sites essential for protest today.) . What has happened to the crooks of TNF, Andrea and Russell? How did the blonde bombshell Amanda Staveley made so much money? How many copies of the National are actually printed daily? 500? 5000? Why does the National still exist? So much to blog about.....come on DMO.

Anonymous said...

Hear Hear !

Anonymous said...

Can the absolute monarchies - in the UAE, Saudi, Kuwait , Qatar - survive? Why have there been so few protests here? Are these countries more liberal than the discredited regimes in Tunisia, Eygpt and Libya and other countries where corrupt and brutal and hypocritical governments are wobbling or just cleverer? How prepared are these countries to counter protests? Who are the special forces who would be deployed? Who supplies their weapons? Does anyone dare write about the endemic drug taking, boozing and prostitution in the UAE, how Saudis come here to gamble, drink and party with East European girls? Never mind the antics of con artists like Russell. This is what this blog should be discussing. Or is that too much to expect of hacks who work in the UAE because they earn a lot while they get a sun tan?

Anonymous said...

Agreed, forget conmen like TMF's Russell Frame and his tacky bimbo sidekick Andrea Slater, this blog could address more imortant issues than paying former employers of a failed company their dues.

I think the reason there have not been protests in the Dubai is because it is affluent. People in Libya and Egypt are protesting because they feel disadvantaged financially as well as deprived of democracy by their dictators. There is also ineqality in Dubai but the underclass isn't local and so finds it harder to be heard.

Besides locals account for 10 per cent of the DUbai population and why would expats want to protest for change of government - they tend to be there just to earn money and have a good time for a few years?

Some stricter muslims despise the western decadence in Dubai - drug taking, boozing and prostitution - but the fast spreading unrest in the Middle East is not a fundamentalist backlash but a cry for greater freedom and democracy.

Sheikh Mo already gives the punters what they want - he does anything to bring money to Dubai - and he is also flexible about make rules slacker or stricter in reaction to the mood of the time.

Anonymous said...

"I think the reason there have not been protests in the Dubai is because it is affluent."

With astute observations like that, I think we'd all be happier with more updates on Russell's daily orders from McDonalds.

Anonymous said...

24 February, 2011 11:01 Makes a good point. The locals and the ex pats in the UAE are happy. That only leaves slaves from south east Asia. They can't do anything because they are too poor, too scared and too closely monitored by the security police. The protests in Bahrain were by LOCALS who are repressed because they are 'the wrong' religion.

Anonymous said...

Churnalism or news? How PRs have taken over the media

A Guardian story this week:

A new website promises to shine a spotlight on "churnalism" by exposing the extent to which news articles have been directly copied from press releases.

The website, churnalism.com, created by charity the Media Standards Trust, allows readers to paste press releases into a "churn engine".
It then compares the text with a constantly updated database of more than 3m articles. The results, which give articles a "churn rating", show the percentage of any given article that has been reproduced from publicity material.

I reckon that if a test were to be run on the UAE dailies, up to 90 per cent of their so-called local coverage on some days would emanate, verbatim, from PR stories or WAM.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/feb/23/churnalism-pr-media-trust

Anonymous said...

Lets not forget gossip, preferably salacious. That was what made DMO good fun.

Anonymous said...

Well thanks the heavens for being suddenly, and fortuitously, independently wealthy. I now have nothing to lose by letting rip.
Where to start?
How about the company director who had a bust-up with a fellow director and so asked his contact in the government to revoke HIS OWN company's licence. It was taken away overnight. Some 32 jobs were lost. His board - and former staff - are still none the wiser.

Anonymous said...

What about the Editor who went home to get married, and spent two months away before returning to her old position. None of her staff realise that 30 of those "days off" were spent in a local jail for a drink driving offence.

Anonymous said...

And then there is the magazine company operating illegally under a "virtual realty" publishing licence. Wrong Emirate, fellows.
They may need to evacuate their nice new offices at very short notice.

Anonymous said...

Have not heard anything about Petch recently .He is still around the more expensive parts of town . Anyone know whats goes on ?

Anonymous said...

"I think the reason there have not been protests in the Dubai is because it is affluent." With astute observations like that, I think we'd all be happier with more updates on Russell's daily orders from McDonalds.

You took the quote out of context. Are you the bitter fool obsessed with Russell Frame and Andrea Slater? Don't be a loser like them, move on, TMF is history.

Anonymous said...

Niell Petch is working for the government now. Still swanning around in his sports car - probably with the money he stole from ENG.he paid himself 100,000 a month while staff went unpaid. If that is how to get a job with the government then I think I know a few others around here who shuld be applying for job.

Anonymous said...

Petch lost out as well - don't put the ENG disaster on him.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Anon@20.51 - I think the editor in question is fairly common knowledge, no? Unless it's not the InfoTechPub editor I'm thinking of.
What's the 'Virtual Realty' (sp?) company?

Russell said...

Probably not 100

Jason said...

Shame about 24/7. RIP.

Neil said...

hullaballoo

Da said...

100 thousand is losing out!!!