Dope

The working week ends and the Arab Media Forum's award-winning journalists are off back home or back at work today with a big awardy thing to put in the glass cabinet in the corner of their offices. After two days of calling for more training, education and freedom for media, everyone's pleased that it all went off so well and that the important issues have all been well and truly highlighted.

Meanwhile, undebated by the Forum, two journalists from an Arabic language daily are defending themselves in a court in Abu Dhabi after two local 'dignitaries' sued them for defamation. They had reported, says Gulf News, that the dignitaries had been stripped of a racing award after their horse had failed a dope test. Their lawyer presented the doping report to the court, as well as the 'international sporting court's ruling' that stripped the 'dignitaries' of the award their horse had won: arguably evidence enough for the case to be instantly dismissed. Perhaps interestingly, the 'dignitaries' are claiming that the 'suspects' intended to malign them because they published the story on the front page and not the sports section, according to the dignitaries' lawyer, quoted by GN.

Tabloid magazine, anyone?