Nice win for 7Days

It's won two separate libel cases - link here:

In the first, Vincent Antia sought to claim dhs1 million over articles he alleged featured both true and fabricated information about his family.

The articles reported how his wife, Sally Antia, had been arrested for having an affair with a male friend. She was later sentenced to one month in prison.

Antia’s claim was dismissed by the courts, which said: "the press has a vital and effective role in directing society and thus it should have sufficient freedom of expression and should consider the public right to information".

In the second case, Ehab Ibrahim Mohamed Al Labban had claimed for dhs5 million for similar reasons. His wife, Marnie Pearce, was sentenced to six months in prison followed by deportation for having an affair, which she denied.

7DAYS published articles on the case.

Al Labban claimed the articles were defamatory, but the court dismissed the claim.

Anyone got any more juice on this?

New sheriff for 7Days?

From a reader:

Can DMO start a thread about what the arrival of Mark Rix from Associated as new CEO of 7 days means, especially for Steve Lee? The journalists were all laughing like drains when they were told.

Can Associated claw back anything after its purchase of a majority share in 7Days? Distribution and readership have fallen, and I would imagine ad sales have too.

For all the jaded journos

Due to popular demand, here's a thread on the new Abu Dhabi newspaper:

Newland seeks 'jaded' journos for Arab paper launch

24 August 2007
By Patrick Smith

Former Daily Telegraph editor Martin Newland is set to launch a new national newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, creating jobs for 200 journalists from around the world.

"This area is absolutely exploding with potential – in many ways running too fast with infrastructure having to catch up. The paper is aimed at anyone at the high end, so you're looking at broadsheet quality, people earning over £100,000 who speak English. In this place, that's the Indian middle classes, the Anglosphere ex-pats and Emiratis, who speak it fluently."

The paper currently has no title or a launch date more concrete than "months, not years away", but Newland stressed its future is "assured" by significant investment from the investment wing of the Abu Dhabi government.

So what's the reckoning? A proper paper or an "Abu Dhabi Today" government promotional rag? And is Newland coming over all guns blazing a la Frank Kane or does he have some clue that this is a region where a newspaper nearly gets shut down because it takes a story from AFP rather than WAM or reprints a relatively innocuous article from the Telegraph?

The Standard Slips

According to 7days, ITP's chances of getting a licence for its daily business paper are "virtually non-existent". Surely a company like ITP wouldn't make the mistake of boasting about a newspaper launch, bragging about "Western standards of journalism", hiring the staff, producing dummies, spending bucket loads of cash etc without making sure they'd got the licence first? Would they? Oh, hold on, they've done it once before. Oops.

Close encounter - but for who?

Confirmation of what we had hoped was a vicious rumour has come in the form of The Secret, Secret Dubai's newsletter, which arrived in the DMO in-boxes today. The typically veiled snippet referred to a "notorious H.A.C.K" who was in the UAE on a false passport.

Yes pop pickers, could Mr X be back in town? Dubai media veterans may recall his former aliases, which include: ITP journo, 7Days, freelance "PR" consultant, accompanier of ladies of negotiable affection. Oh, and in case we forget, convicted felon.

Mr X has had a couple of stays in a Dubai jail already, for alcohol-abetted auto scrapes and japes. How on earth could he get back in the country, we hear you ask?

Our second source confirms: "He's in town on a false passport and already got picked up by the Jebel Ali cops. They suspected who he was, but couldn't be bothered to pursue it, and let him go."

What next for 7DAYS?

Like all the best Emirates Today exclusives, we're slightly slow off the mark on this one. Unlike Emirates Today, it was because we were checking our facts (and because our 7DAYS moles have gone undercover).

Editor extraordinaire Neil Sawyer is indeed out, as is his predecessor and (apparently) the MD too. Could this spell the end for Dubai's spunkiest paper? Or will Associated Newspapers step in and save the day?

We're just trying to locate a 7DAYS employee from beneath the bottom of a pint glass to confirm details, so if anyone can fill in the gaps, please go ahead.

"Time to say goodbye"

Yep - hankies out for media and PR bunnies alike - for hackspruikermedialegendextraordinaire Greg kHunt is leaving us forever.

The time has come to change this column a little. After talking with my editor and the powers that be at 7DAYS, they have agreed that it should take a more international slant. The reason for this is two-fold. Firstly, we can always do with a little ‘freshening up’ of a weekly column so that we don't keep revisiting the same topics and secondly, my family and I are leaving Dubai.

Full tears of joyjerking story here.

Perhaps you'd all like to reminisce your fave memories from 18 years of media excellence?

7days, 6days, 5days and counting

A reader suggests it is time to do something on the "slow demise" of everyone's favourite ragloid, 7Days.

A number of staff have left, there's a new editor who rumour has it doesn't have a clue, editorially they're pretty much avoiding anything interesting, they've lost distribution in Emaar, they're back down to 6days...

And Project X is launching soon. Though no doubt it will be crap too.

So what to think? Did the Russian-bitch-scandal and Arab press whingeing over a few punctuation marks in the infamous Presidential interview finally rip the balls off Dubai's best antidote to the Toady?

Today's tittle tattle

Blind Item 1: It sounds like the start of a really cracking joke: "ITP boss Robert Serafin, Haymarket's Lord (Michael) (Tarzan) Heseltine and Scottish media guru Andrew Neil were having a meal at Vu's..." You can make up your own *punch*line, given that's what nearly happened when the bearded one of the three stormed out.

Blind Item 2: Which British press baron wrote a letter to an ultra senior Dubai dishdash using the actual phrase: "call your dogs off" in reference to an alleged smear campaign against a Dubai daily tabloid?

X marks the spot?

Gulf News' tabloid - Xpress, formerly known has Project X, has been given a March 15 launch date ... March 2007, though I seem to remember it's been "about to launch" for more than a year now, making it the fifth-most delayed project in Dubai after each of the Palms and The World.

It will have a print run of 80,000 - 100,000, apparently. Is that on the Gulf media counting scale, where a copy in the hand is worth two in the named print run?

Gulf Snooze staff say it will compete with 7Days. I'm not quite sure how: it's only going out twice a week. Actually, come to think of it, not sure that even qualifies it to be called a newspaper.