Fadfada

Yesterday was the first time for me to attend the Arab Media Forum. I had a meeting at the morning but luckily I finished just in time to catch the session I was really interested in attending; “Daily Newspapers: Crisis in the West, growth in the Arab World." We have all been arguing about the death of printed media and the rise of digital and social media. Yet one year ago, The National newspaper was launched in the UAE and a couple of months ago Alrroya Aleqtisadiya newspaper did. In Egypt I honestly lost track of newspapers launched as every now and then I hear of a new one. My colleague just read that a new printed newspaper will launch in Oman. Does this look like a growth in printed media or what? So I was really looking forward to the session hoping it would shed the light on the reasons behind this growth or proving the death of printed media, especially with the prominent media figures speaking and attending. I was expecting a great debate and a heated discussi...

I have been in the UAE for two years. For the past year and six months I have been working in PR and so far I enjoy it. However, ever since I started I couldn’t help noticing that weird love/hate relationship between media and PR here. So many times I have read and heard journalists talking about how the PR industry is woeful and PR people are a mere hindrance to them. I kept quiet till I read today’s article in The National . I really liked it when Tala was talking about the ethics of journalism and said “some of us...” I liked how she acknowledged that some journalists understand true journalism and others don’t. I just wish that she did the same talking about PR because, believe it or not, there are good PR people out there just as there are bad ones. I really don’t think that Tala met or dealt with every single PR person here. I agree that PR shouldn’t be the journalist’s only source of information. But why not be one of many? I know my client’s business better than any...

Ever since the Egyptian government decided to slaughter the 350,000 pigs in Egypt because of Swine Flu and I have been hearing conflicting thoughts and views as some are praising the decision and others are fighting it and accusing the government of ignorance. Honestly, I was ok with that; after all you could never please everyone. I still haven’t made up my mind regarding the rightness of this decision though. Sometimes when I read in websites like CDC about how Influenza viruses can be directly transmitted from pigs to people and from people to pigs, I say may be it was the right decision, may be it is better to be safe than sorrow. We already screwed up the Bird Flu situation, should we wait till we screw up this situation as well! Other times when I read that there are no confirmed cases of transmission between pigs and humans at this point as per WHO and hear people argue; should we kill humans infected as well? I re-think the whole situation. I mean I know I can’t comp...