Sunday 10 May 2009

Donkeys and The Media

aMuleImage via Wikipedia

Gulf News makes donkeys of us all today.

Back up to 640g after some recent disastrous forays into the 500s and even 400s, your favourite newspaper trumpets 'Awards Muled for English Media' on its front page earpiece.

Something being muled is certainly a change from 'on the anvil', the favourite phrase among GN sub-editors for 'not ready yet'. So what is taking so much muling?

The answer is to be found in a page 7 interview with Mariam Bin Fahed, the Director of Dubai Press Club. Apart from confirming some Great Truths:

"There are some issues we don't want to discuss."

"If we see that the x-marks are higher, we avoid discussing the subject."

"There was an article that was too sensitive in 2006 and it was scored number one by the judges When it came to the senior panel members, they had to hold it back and the award went to the second candidate."

"You don't want to encourage negative acts."

The interview also contains the suprising assertion that "journalists are even writing articles specifically for the award now."

Needless to say, with many journalists in Egypt, for example, holding down two jobs to make ends meet, many of the region's vastly under-paid press would write articles about the pleasures of keeping bunny rabbits and making daisy chains if you offered them $15,000.

They'd probably write about bloody Modhesh for that much money.

Anyway, in the interview Mariam Bin Fahd didn't rule out an award for English language media that serve the region, hence the claim that the Press Club is muling an award.

It'll be interesting to see what wins this years Arabic awards given the clear signal in the piece that anything controversial, the result of great, ground-breaking journalism for instance, likely won't be muled at all...
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5 comments:

Em said...

don't they mean 'mulling'?

*shakes head* at least i get told off for using American English spellings instead of British English spellings.

But then again I'm a confused girl. Spent 15+ odd years learning British English doing O and A-levels, only to have to switch to American in my 4-year Bachelors, to have to switch back to British English at work!

Hasn't anyone heard of proof-reading with spell check?

Anonymous said...

With the recent reductions in weight I had hoped GN was paying more than lip service to their ongoing campaign, "War on Waste"!

Anonymous said...

Media junkie: "muling" sails (sales, even) through spell check cos it's a real word, albeit a malapropism. Just as does "mans laughter" when the intention is manslaughter, "bowel" for bowl etc etc etc. It's why the your/you're misuse is so common.
As for the main topic, words fail me...

Kawthar said...

The definition of "Muled":

to be "owned" or dominated; usually over the internet or form of internet such as Xbox Live.

After posting a naked picture of Clay's fat girlfriend on the forums, Brett knew he had completely muled the insolent poster.

Dubai Jazz said...

I watched an interview with the head of the reward committee on Dubai TV couple of days ago. The boys are convening at the Atlantis for party and handing over of rewards. That was all she said (or I could understand).

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