Can You Spot 6 Mistakes In This Article?

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Recently I was browsing the famous Gulf News and stumbled across this article - Shattered lives after traffic accidents in UAE . I was appalled to find so many grammatical and structural mistakes. After reading the article those journalists surely did not give the respect and attention this article deserved. Can you spot them?

Layoffs at Gulf News?

Several commenters have mentioned possible layoffs at Gulf News.

If anyone has heard anything, feel free to discuss.

Gulf News - Editor's notes?

Via a comment, did the subeditor forget to remove the government instructions from under the headline?



Original article here, still showing the strange intro text.

"Toning down" Dubai coverage

From the Wall St Journal:

DUBAI-- Gulf News, a newspaper part-owned by a senior government minister in the United Arab Emirates, has told its journalists to avoid using the words "bailout" and "default" when writing about Dubai's debt crisis, according to an internal memo sent to staff and seen by Zawya Dow Jones.

Reporters for the paper, the largest English-language daily in the U.A.E., were also urged to steer clear of the phrase "debt crisis" and asked to "ensure the following politically correct terminology is used" -- words such as "financial consolidation" and "fiscal support" -- when describing the sheikdom's economic problems and the assistance it has received from Abu Dhabi, according to the note sent Dec. 14.

"This is a style guide," said Francis Matthew, the Dubai-based paper's editor-at-large when asked by Zawya Dow Jones about the memo. "We're trying to restrict people from using financially incorrect terms."

More here

Gulf News has to pay more than £1m in libel suit

Whoops. Gulf News has lost a libel case in the UK courts.

According to The Times website today, the damages and costs are more than £1 million.

AN EDINBURGH property developer has been awarded more than £1m in damages and costs against a Dubai newspaper after it wrongly said that he had deceived Middle East investors.

Mark Emlick, chairman and founder of Dunedin Independent, one of Scotland’s largest privately-owned independent financial advice businesses, won his case against the Gulf News in the High Court in London this week.

He brought the case for defamation of character after Gulf News reported in April last year that he and a partner were being sought in Dubai and in the UK by investors who claimed he had absconded with their money after a property deal that involved his company Strategic Property Investment group (SPI) went sour.

Rewriting history

Holy crap. Even by Gulf News standards, this editorial is a shocker. The opening para from Dr Mohammad Al Mutawa (professor of sociology at UAE University in Al Ain) says:

Today, the whole world stands as a witness to the fact that the Nazi holocaust was a mere lie, which was devised by the Zionists to blackmail humanity. The same Zionist entity swindled the world out of billions of dollars over the years to compensate the wrong and unjust which they claim to have been inflicted on their people.

Obviously, a qualification in history isn't a requirement to study sociology in Al Ain.

Update: The Guardian has picked up on the Gulf News column.

Media vs Media

Poor old Gulf News is unhappy with the latest Fleet Street coverage of Dubai - article here:

Two articles published three days apart from each other in leading British newspapers lashed out at how expatriates live and work in the UAE. The list of criticism included: the state of thousands of labourers, the thriving business of prostitution, the status of the 'rich' and 'pampered' Emiratis who are the only group enjoying the oil wealth, 'racism' of all forms and shapes, lack of accountability and transparency, the demographic imbalance, and of course, the case of sex on the public beach.

[...]

Hence, when such articles of criticism appear, they come across as a reminiscent of an ignorant bygone colonial era. Unfortunately, and much so disappointedly, some seem to be still entrapped in the old mentality of discriminatory bias between East and West.

So know now that objecting to slavery, oppression, discrimination and racism makes you a ignorant biased Colonialist.

Car crash reporting

For a moment, we thought the combination of the sweaty smoggy haze of Dubai and pre-vacation excitement had turned us soft and fluffy, when we let this piece in Gulf News slip through the cracks. Luckily, we woke up with hangovers today and wanted to vent.

Could we have reached new depths in the UAE with Gulf News' My car saved me from death? We would urge you to read it in its full glory. Stand-out quotes from the driver include:

"I felt safe and protected in my Volvo S80... During the accident I really praised myself for driving a Volvo."

Good job that the manufacturers were on hand to provide a quote as well:

"The testimony of Eric Brouwer demonstrates that the Volvo S80 has been developed to make it one of the safest cars in its class....[He} is a living proof that Volvo is committed to manufacture vehicles with high safety criteria."

Next week: a news story about how many hot women are attracted to a convertible. Brought to you by the makers of Porsche.

Hands on services

Cracking piece in the Kipp Report today, questioning whether Gulf News has been running ads for massage parlours with benefits. Interesting to see German girls are charged at a premium; they must have particularly good hands.

Has anyone else noticed adverts like this in UAE publications?

For what it's worth, I think the Kipp Report is pretty good.

Crunch Times for Khaleej?

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.

International media up the pressure

One reader has asked us to open up the debate on the upcoming UAE versions of the Financial Times and International Herald Tribune. This follows on from the local edition of The Times.

How do you think these titles will fare? Will local papers like Gulf News and the newly-launched The National suffer? Or, will it just mean that existing FT and IHT buyers have easier access to their paper of choice, and there will be very little effect on the local market? And, will this further highlight the lack of available talent at the upper end of the local business media market (with newswires and publications already struggling to fill their vacancies)?

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."

GN should be ashamed

The headline:

Marriage between close relatives 'does not pose health risk'

is nowhere near a fair summary of:

DUBAI — Marrying close relatives within the limits of religious sanctions may not necessarily pose health risks for offspring

"May not"=/="Does not"

Up next:

Shooting people in the head 'does not kill them'
Jumping off the Burj 'does not result in death'
Writing for Gulf News 'does not make you a journalist'

Muffling Morocco

Why is Gulf News being so alarmingly coy?

Dubai: A UAE-based relative of Madeleine McCann is trying to raise awareness in the Arab world of the young girl's disappearance.

Oil industry worker John Sweeney, an Abu Dhabi resident who is related to Madeleine's grandmother Eileen, said he is keen for Arabic speakers to learn about the plight of the four-year-old.

There are suspicions that Madeleine, who disappeared from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal on May 3, has been taken to an Arab country (Gulf News has withheld the name of the nation).

If they mean Morocco, then that reported sighting has been all over the internet and newspapers for weeks.

Xquisite or xxxx?

After two years of plotting in a secret basement, Gulf News has finally launched XPress. So is it really a 'new style of newspaper', or just a mildly better organised imitation of City Times with a confused looking front cover and more colours than Sport Extra (if that's possible)? Should 7days - XPress' self-proclaimed rival - be worried?

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.

Gulf News: cock-up or cop out?

The Gulf News ran an interview with Dr Amr Jad, a consultant from Riyadh Armed Forces Hospital, where the doctor said sex education in the Middle East did not need to cover ways of preventing STDs.

Apparently, the doctor's views were "putting a damper on HIV/Aids awareness efforts in the region". I'll say.

This is where editors should get involved. There should have been uproar at the daily meeting and - with a lack of probing questions in the article - there should have been a stern comment piece written forthwith. Much as everyone loves Secret Dubai, we need some baring of teeth in the local and regional media.

The gagged German

Is this the first instance (at least publically admitted) of a UAE newspaper, in this instance Gulf News, "buying up" a story subject and preventing them from talking to other media?

Explaining his dilemma, Graf said, "The reporter who first carried my story said I could talk only to German media and not anyone from the local media until he carried my follow-up on Friday. I know this is a free world and you have the right to write about me. But I cannot talk anything till they allow me."

It's a well known tactic elsewhere, but unfamiliar and possibly new to the local media scene, no wonder Gulf Today describes it:

"...clear manifestation of conditional help and how unhealthy competition can spoil professional ethics in journalism.

It would be also interesting to see what - if any - contract Graf has signed with Gulf News and what legal representation he has. A few Max Cliffords would be quite an interesting addition to the local "celebrity" scene.