The New Media Nightmare

Image via Wikipedia

This is a guest post contributed by online pal and fellow writer of books Robb Grindstaff.

Robb and I originally encountered each other on Harper Collins' authonomy peer-review writer's site thingy and we've been, along with a group of like-minded peeps, keeping in touch and bouncing stuff around ever since. By day, Robb's a newspaper editor in the US and, as he mentions in the post, we've been talking a lot about the future of writing, both in terms of fiction and daily news media. This is his take:

A conversation started recently among a group of writer friends with this article, which discusses the new distribution methods for music and books and the effects on the content producers (musicians and writers). The conversation then segued into this article about the Associated Press and News Corp telling Google and Yahoo! it’s time to pay up for the news content they aggregate and distribute.

From the news media perspective, particularly the newspapers where I’ve worked for my entire career, online distribution has become the death knell for newspapers when it should have been the saving grace that eliminated the high costs of 'traditional' printing and distribution.

In the olden days (say, the 1700s up to 1989), journalists held the power. Newspaper publishers were the kings of the hill in their cities, making or breaking politicians and business/industry tycoons with the power of the pen. They sold the newspaper for a nickel, or a quarter or a dollar, everyone read it, most cities had two or three major competing newspapers and many people read more than one newspaper. The newspaper owned/controlled the content and content producers (journalists), the publishing (printing presses), and distribution (paper boys and newsstands). To this great mass market of readers, advertisers flocked and paid lots of money to get their ads in these newspapers that were delivered and read each day by virtually everyone.

There are books that could be written (and have been written) on the in-between parts, how we got from then to now, but today it’s looking like this:

• Journalists are unemployed in the thousands.

• Aggregators of news, such as Google and Yahoo, are the new distributors.

• Aggregators don't employ or pay a single journalist. They take content from everyone else. They have virtually no overhead in comparison to media. Their overhead is primarily computers servers which reach hundreds of millions for cents. They don't have to print and deliver a newspaper to every doorstep every day, pay reporters or camera crews or videographers or producers.

• Readers are wired and the Internet provides instant news rather than waiting for tomorrow morning's newspaper. Readers can find newspaper depth to stories (as opposed to the typically thinner reporting prominent on TV), but delivered instantly 24 hrs a day (the advantage of TV). Even better as it's delivered on demand. You don't even have to make sure you turn on the TV at a certain time to catch a certain newscast or news story.

• As readers have moved online, so advertisers have migrated to Google/Yahoo/etc., because that’s where the eyeballs are also aggregated.

• In the meantime, newspapers are going broke, bankrupt, closing, and laying off thousands of journalists as they've lost advertisers to online. Even though newspapers also operate their own Websites, they are by definition mostly local (other than the New York Times and a small handful of others), and the Internet is global. Readers don't feel a need to make sure they get their news from their local newspaper or local TV news. World and national news has become a commodity, and readers expect it for free, at their fingertips.

This worldwide access to information should be a boon to freedom and democracy.

But what will the aggregators aggregate, what will the distributors distribute, and what will consumers consume when all the journalists are gone? And when the level of competent journalism has declined to a certain point, who will be the watchdog over the government and major institutions on behalf of citizens and taxpayers?

That’s the thought keeps me up at night as the new world of media figures out a business model.

GeekTalks

One of the 'new features' we've introduced to GeekFest, the offline social for online people, is 'GeekTalks'. It seemed like a good way to use uber-funky hangout The Shelter's smart private screening room, giving people the chance to share user feedback, information, innovation or other stuff of note.

Here's what we've got in mind for GeekFest 2.0, which takes place at The Shelter on the 22nd October 2009.

Catalin Marin
HDR photography, what it is and how to do it.
An often controversial technique, HDR, or High Dynamic Range, photography makes use of a number of images of a subject that are taken at varying exposures and combined to create often stunning images of startling depth and richness. Catalin, who's the man behind popular photoblog Momentary Awe, will be sharing how you can do it for yourself without having to spend gazillions on specialist software.

James Piecowye and Giorgio Ungania
TEDx Dubai Update. Now the dust has settled, a review of TEDx.
Dubai's TEDx confounded sceptics and delighted its audience by delivering a day of inspirational and challenging talks from people who had something special to share. James and co-organiser Giorgio invested an amazing amount of time and effort into the event and will be organising TEDx Dubai 2010 as well - they're going to share how they felt the day went, what they got right, what they got wrong and even an idea of where they're going to go with next year's event.

Narain Jashanmal
The Internet, social media and the future of publishing
Narain Jashanmal heads the Jashanmals magazine, book and periodical distribution business and he's been working on where the future leads for the industry - we're seeing thousands of journalists laid off around the US and Europe, magazines closing down and advertising revenue moving, along with readers' eyes, online. So what's Narain's view of what the future holds for publishing - and how is he preparing for doomsday?

Tom Gara
The National’s ‘Project X’
The last GeekTalker of the night will be the enigmatic Tom Gara, formerly technology editor at Abu Dhabi-based UAE newspaper The National and founder of its technology blog, BeepBeep. He's working in a laboratory fifteen hundred metres below sea level in a lead-lined complex containing myriad racks of impressive machinery - together with a team of white-coated scientists whom he will kill before emerging with 'Project x' under his arm and bringing it to GeekFest to share.

The GeekTalks will start at around 8.00pm and are planned to last no more than 15 minutes each. The speakers are responsible for starting on time and finishing on time and bringing their own audience - we're not herding anyone anywhere or putting anyone under pressure to attend. The speakers can co-ordinate things between themselves if they like because we're not getting involved in all that heartache.

This will either be a glorious triumph or a shambolic mess. Either way, it'll be worth coming along to GeekFest and seeing what's going down!

By the way, we had a silly Twitter thing going on the other day to find the name for GeekFest 3.0 (and we haven't even worked out when we're going to do that yet!) and we'll be voting for the winner at GeekFest. You can take a peek at the #GeekFestSequelTitles hashtag on Twitter if you're curious (and many of the participants were definitely curious).

If you want to get updates and stuff, you can follow @GeekFestDubai on Twitter and there's a GeekFest FaceBook group too, for no particularly good reason. You can also email either myself or Saadia Zahid at the addresses given on the GeekFest Twitter page.

Do UAE Driving Test Reform Ideas Miss The Mark?

Image via Wikipedia

The National's position on the doorstep of the Federal Government has allowed the newspaper to quickly carve a leadership position in the UAE's news scene - it's been consistently breaking stories that other papers aren't within a mile of, frequently scooping them on important moves being made or studied.

One such story today is the report on reforms being considered to the UAE's driving test regulations. Possible changes being suggested by consultants include requiring Brits, Canadians and Australians to pass a local theoretical and practical test before they can drive here, requiring taxi drivers to have two years' experience of driving in the UAE before they can drive a taxi and also allowing people to learn to drive, if they wish, with an unlicensed but experienced driver rather than being forced to go to a driving school.

Two of these reforms I totally agree with. The third is ridiculous and unworkable.

The moves are being bandied about by UK based consultancy Transport Research Laboratory, which is advising the Ministry of Interior. TRL, previously a UK government entity, was privatised in 1996 and offers counsel and services based around transport and logistics.

The reform idea that tickled me enormously was bringing in the UK practice of allowing people to learn to drive without being forced to go to a licensed instruction. In the UK, it's quite common for people to learn to drive with a family member, perhaps having a couple of 'top up' lessons with an instructor before sitting the test. These days, newly qualified drivers have to wear a green 'L' plate for a year after they qualify, as well, which I do think is a good idea.

The driving schools are obviously up in arms about that one, because they'd lose their easy source of revenue from giving a million (or whatever the mandatory number is this week) lessons to hapless learners. The standard of instruction (Sarah took some top-up lessons here and was horrified) here is often cited as being impossibly low and close to useless. I have certainly seen learner cars driven with incredible incompetence both with one and two occupants.

So I think that one would be interesting - and probably see the pass rate increase exponentially.

The Brits need a license idea, I support purely on the basis of fairness. It's not fair that we don't have to take a test while other nationalities do. If we are as superior and wonderful as we all think we are as drivers, we should breeze it. An alternative would be to widen the 'no license' requirement to any country that had professional standards of driving qualification and a similar road sign system to the UAE, but maybe that's just me being silly.

However, while I have no problem with British nationals being required to take a theoretical and practical test in the UAE, I cannot fathom the reasons that TRL's Britta Lang gave to The National - “The knowledge of local road safety requirements is quite incompetent. Many people don’t know the road signs and are not aware of the safety requirements.”

That's an unsustainable assertion (unless it's based on extensive research of the knowledge of local traffic signs among those newly awarded with their first residence visa, which I doubt) and an odd one, to boot. The traffic signs in the UAE are based on British signs, using the same colour coding and shapes for mandatory, advisory and cautionary signs. I can think of no traffic sign (please do prove me wrong) in use here that wouldn't be instantly recognisable to any Western driver, except perhaps the 'mind the camels' sign, which would require at least a passing knowledge of the shape of a one-humped ungulate.

In fact, in order to comply with local safety requirements, I have had to learn a number of new skills, including pulling over when the Nissan Patrol up my arse flashes and beeps at me, watching out for blind maniacs with a death wish crossing six lanes of motorway without signalling, predicting when taxis are about to stop on a sixpence with no warning because they've spotted a fare and the principle that swapping lanes puts you instantly in the wrong no matter what circumstances cause the collision, including willfully driving into you because 'it's my lane'.

In order to survive as a driver in the Middle East over the past 20 years, I have had to unlearn pretty much every rule of driving taught to me in my home country. I have no problem sitting a test here. I have a huge problem being told it's necessary because I don' t understand the traffic signs and safety requirements.

But the daftest proposal, and one that showed how outside consultants with no experience of the local environment can go impossibly wide of the mark, was that of insisting that taxi drivers should have two years' experience of driving in the UAE before they're taken on.

It's surely obvious to the most idiotic, drooling incompetent that only employing taxi drivers with 24 months' experience of driving in the UAE is a completely unworkable proposal and should never have made it past the unwise contribution the lippy intern made to the first working group discussion. And why you would propose safety legislation for taxi drivers when every misbegotten escapee from Tora Bora, Helmand and Swat is currently bombing around the UAE in bald-tyred, battered deathtraps hefting tons of rock, shit and cement, passes me by entirely.

In fact, the most sensible proposal in the whole article was made by a driving school owner, who presumably hadn't been consulted by the consultants. Ehad Esbaita, general manager of Emirates Driving Compan, suggested that professional drivers should have to undergo a more rigorous course of instruction and certification and that this would have an instant effect on road safety in the UAE.

I thought that one idea alone was worth everything the consultants had to say and more.

Dubai DOA?

English: Dubai Magyar: Dubaj (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Remember this post back in 2007 about Paramount having bought a script for a film called Dubai from 'tyro writer' Adam Cozad? The film was to be produced by, and star, Eric Bana, according to breathless reports in our local media and an almost unreadable Variety story, written in Variety's own strange 'Hollywoodese' dialect.

Having landed a regular search or two every now and then for Adam Cozad Dubai since I posted it, I idly followed one of the backlinks to find this oldish but still fascinating post on ScriptShadow, a blog that reviews Hollywood scripts.

That post, in turn, links to this. It's the PDF of the script that Paramount bought from The William Morris Agency.

What amazes me is not that a respected literary and theatrical agency bought this awful crap, or that a respected actor backed it as producer. I am also resolutely un-amazed that Paramount signed up to produce the film.

No. What amazes me is that all this happened to a script whose author was widely reported as never actually having visited Dubai when he wrote it. And boy, does it show when you read the script itself. I do commend a read of it - if it doesn't make you angry, you're not human. You won't finish it, you'll close the window in disgust within a few pages. Betcha.

We are introduced to our hero in a shot where he is playing his regular game of tennis with his gorgeous wife. The camera pulls back to reveal that the game is taking place on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab. The whole thing goes downhill from that low point with such pace that it's like being on a theme park 'drop' ride.

It's got everything - lots of greedy Arabs, a drop dead gorgeous wife who walks out on our hero because he's been busy at the office for 10 days and thought so little of her as to forget their anniversary and then buy her a Tiffany necklace to say sorry. It's got rich, powerful sheikhs who are arrogant (the ruler of Dubai is called Massaud for some odd reason) but who our hero shows up because he's just, somehow, smarter than they are. It's got shopping malls and grinning Sikh crane drivers ('Over 60% of the world's skycranes are there'), chase scenes through malls and undersea hotels, palms and the dizzying islands of the world. It's got an evil Iranian terrorist and a plot to manipulate financial markets through terrorism. It's even got a car chase with a dumper truck for some reason.

It's a reminder of everything I have hated about the Lalaland phenomenon, everything that made Dubai a cliché and then provided such a convenient downturn target for the vicious schadenfreude of the British press. It's also an example of everything dumb and hateful in mainstream Hollywood's over-simplistic and wilfully racist view of the Middle East.

Two years after the news of the sale of the script, there hasn't been another word about the project, which was supposed to have started filming in September 2007. I do hope to God that means it will never be made and that 'Dubai' is truly DOA.

Did the recession mean the project no longer had that 'edge' to it? That Paramount assumed that DoBuy had all reverted to sand and black goat-hair tents and so there'd be no use filming perfect blondes shopping in its marble-paved megamalls??

If so, it's an ill wind that blows no good...

Good News

Great news today thanks to the eagle-eyed team of uber-hacks at The National, which reports that the National ID card mess was, in fact, a waste of time.

Yes! From next year, the Labour Card and Residency Permit will be merged with the National ID Card to provide a single card and a single process for applying for it.

So all that going online and mucking about with the application application, wrestling with unusable websites and making appointments months ahead was about quite what? As bloggers and others have been pointing out for some time, on a 3-year visa cycle, integrating the National ID and residency processes would have meant the whole thing could have been implemented without the confusion, fuss and mess.

In fact, The National report has this telling quote from the acting director of EIDA, Dr. Ali al Khouri: “I will admit that we did not market the card properly at the outset. So now we are wanting to market it in such a way that shows how beneficial it is for people to have.”

Anyway, let's not be negative. The good news is that we'll have a single card and a single transaction platform for almost all our dealings with government. And, for those of us that actually bothered in the end to do the ID card thing, the process of migrating to the new, integrated, card will be seamless, apparently. We 'have to do nothing'...

We shall see...

GeekFest Update

GeekFest 2.0 is to be held at The Shelter on the 22nd October, which is next Thursday. Putting 2.0 after the name makes it so very cool, but the next time it'll be even cooler because we haven't even got to Web 3.0 yet.

Isn't this all so terribly exciting?

As you may remember, we put GeekFest 2.0 back to give Twestival Dubai some space (a deep apology to Mr and Mrs Goat, who didn't get the Twitter heads-up that we'd changed the date).

Now it's full steam ahead for the 22nd and we've got some treats for you.

GeekFest is intended to be an offline social for online people and would be interesting for anyone who's involved in the online world and in using technology to create, educate, entertain, inform or just play around.

The event remains resolutely un-organised. We're suggesting a 7pm start, but you can please yourselves when you turn up. We have added a couple of aspects to the event, mainly to cater to the feedback that while everyone loved GeekFest 1.0, they thought some things to give it more, well, purpose might be in order. Your wish is our command...

TechnoCases
We have, as previously reported, brought in two technology companies to mount technology showcases at the event. Both Nokia and Lenovo will be there showing off their snazzy new gadgets. Both have promised not to hassle the geeks - the idea is that they're there for you to talk to if you want to - no aggressive marketing, shouting or anything. If this works, we'll do more of these next time.

GeekTalks
After 8 o'clock, we'll have a number of speaking slots for people to share interesting technologies, projects, thoughts, ideas, practical things or disgusting personal habits. Each slot will be 15 minutes long maximum and it will be up to the speaker to invite his/her audience, start on time and end on time. This will either work perfectly because of the collective will for it to do so, or will descend into absolute chaos. Either way, we're not taking responsibility.

We'll be posting a schedule at the start of next week, but there are a couple of slots still free if anyone fancies having a go. I shouldn't have to say this, but the law obviously states absolutely no sales pitches - this is intended to be user generated.

Windows 7 Launch Party
As you may or may not know, Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system launches around the world on October 22nd and Microsoft has earnestly been soliciting participants for a number of launch parties around the world. You can find out more from this gloriously inept video.

Sadly, our plans to host a Windows 7 Launch Party have had to be cancelled following a viciously outraged reaction to the idea from the Macintosh community. You haven't heard the last of this, Mac Freaks.

Eats
The Shelter, as you probably are aware, has many enviable features - including its very own More Café. Food and drink at GeekFest will be, thanks to a sneaky commercial arrangement with the TechnoCase chaps, freely available at no cost to attendees. And excellent, too!

Location
The Shelter is in Dubai's Al Qouz industrial area. Here's a map!

Registration
Are you kidding? Just turn up...


If you want to get updates and stuff, you can follow @GeekFestDubai on Twitter and there's a GeekFest FaceBook group too, for no particularly good reason. You can also email either myself or Saadia Zahid at the addresses given on the GeekFest Twitter page.

Corbis Blocked

Image via CrunchBase

Etisalat has blocked Corbis, the photo library owned by one William Gates III Jnr.

A major site used by millions of creatives around the world, the Corbis picture library is an important resource. Blocking it sets a worrying precedent - does this now mean that other picture libraries are going to be subject to blocking? And what does that mean for the UAE's creative industries?

Creativity comes with freedom of expression, they're old (ahem) bedfellows. Where there is creativity you find people pushing the envelope.

I think you need to take a position - make an evaluation of the cultural value of a site vs a couple of things you don't like. Not just smash in a block the second your software catches sight of a naughty bit.

This random blocking is helping nobody - I've posted about it before. Flikr is bad enough, social networks are bad enough.

But a major internationally renowned image library?

They've got to be kidding...

BTW, Du has not blocked Corbis. So we may yet see this potty decision reversed.

Magic? Not really, no...

Image by netzkobold via Flickr

UAE telco Etisalat yesterday unveiled the new 'HTC Magic' smartphone, a device based on Google's Android operating system. There's no sign from today's newspapers that anyone at yesterday's press conference chose to press the telco that likes to say 'ugh' on the massive network outages that have taken place over the last few days. We're all 'on message' today.

This is the third device that the telco has announced it will support and sell in a reversal of the decision, taken back in the early '90s, to liberalise the UAE's terminal equipment market. Etisalat also sells RIM's BlackBerry (the source of the great spyware scandal) and Apple's iPhone. That decision, formalised in comments to media yesterday, is a tectonic shift in the market and deserved more coverage than it got. But perhaps its importance wasn't blindingly obvious enough for it to be picked up.

Gulf News' slightly breathless coverage is eclipsed by Emirates Business 24|7 (which is now, of course, only published five days a week, making it Emirates Business 24|5, but we'll let that go), which trumpets 'Etisalat to launch own branded mobile phone'!

The Emirates Business story on the HTC Magic mixes it up confusingly with the news that Etisalat is going to go back into the 'own brand' terminal market, with a new 'phone being brought to market under the 'Etisalat' brand.

Gulf News' story provides a great deal more clarity, information and depth on the HTC touch, which is a nice surprise. It also points out that the phone will ship with 'Goggle' applications such as mail, search, maps and Google Talk.

Goggle. Nice one, GN subs.

The telephone's 'connectivity technologies' include HSDPA 7Mpbs and HSUPA 2Mbps, reports Gulf News with a charming and complete lack of context.

HSPA is the 'next generation' of telecom protocols, at times referred to as 'beyond 3G', High Speed Packet Access. it comes in two flavours Downlink (HSDPA) and Uplink (HSUPA) and supports hyper-fast mobile data rates - today's HSPA networks can pump over 20Mbps down to a mobile, while HSPA evolution is going to more than double that. So we're talking about hyper-fast network access, streaming video, rich content downloads and all that good stuff. Except, of course, at Etisalat's rates, the whole proposition is utterly ruinous.

At 7 Mbps, you would eat through 1Gig of data in a little over two and a half minutes, taking 25 minutes to munch through the 10Gigabyte package that will be bundled with the HTC Magic contract (reports, uniquely, The National).

Worse, you'll be paying a smidgen under Dhs75 per second for data access when you're roaming.

Yup - at Etisalat's ridiculous roaming fees of Dhs2.5 per 30 Kbytes of data, you'll certainly be loving that old high speed download Magic!

(If this post seems unusually grumpy, it's probably because my lowly 384kbit 3G Nokia has been cut off by said telco because my bill is over Dhs1,000. Or two seconds' worth of Magic!)

The Hungriness of Women

Why do I do this? Why don’t I learn?

Last time around was AdWomen, the event at Dubai's JamJar where I got torn to shreds by smart women with long, gouging fingernails while that craven ratfink of a journalist Austyn Allison looked on in vicarious glee and took photos. Did I learn? Did I hell!

Yesterday I gave a talk to the inaugural business lunch event of the Abu Dhabi International Businesswomen’s Group. And, like a fool, I let The National’s Jen Gerson see what was going on. I should have told her she couldn’t come, but she was insistent. Now I know why. Because she wanted to crow as I fell to a cannibalistic feeding frenzy.

The room was small, cosy. About 50 businesswomen, smart, educated, empowered. The same sort of bunch as AdWomen - just as pleasant and friendly and triggering the same gut-churning dread. Why didn’t I learn my damn lesson? Gerson is delighted as the room fills with ladies in smart outfits and suits, chatting to each other animatedly. She’s giggling insanely like a blonde Beavis and Butthead, darting glances at me as sweat breaks out on my brow.

“They’re gonna eat you!” she whinnies, licking her lips with sick anticipation. “Eat you! Hur! Hur!”

I try to ignore her vicious journalist’s jibes and prepare myself mentally for the talk. The projector’s bust and the Rotana people bring a new one. My palms are damp and I'm alternately freezing and sweating as the guests take their seats. They start to stand and introduce themselves to the new members who’ve turned up. This one runs a small business, that one's a lawyer. More than one lawyer. Too many lawyers. Dammit, they're going to eat me, then sue? Gerson’s standing by the door (just like Allison, I noticed, damn journalists always position themselves with a clear route to the exit) and leering at me. I can hear her gleeful whickers over the chatter in the room.

And then we’re off. IBWG committee member Pam introduces me and I walk up to the podium. Gerson’s words are ringing in my ears, “They’re gonna eat you!”. As I start talking, some fifty pairs of eyes are on me. The starter’s been served, but they’re not touching it and I’m suddenly keenly aware of the fact that I’m slightly overweight. They’d get a little over a kilo and a half each. I watch one lick her lips as I try to keep the flow of the talk going, showing them that image of the first Arpanet diagram, explaining how Caxton disintermediated the Catholic Church and the Internet disintermediated millions, talking about collaboration and the overnight movement of x-rays around the world. It’s disjointed, a tumble of thoughts and concepts and I just keep talking, suddenly aware that I’m in no danger as long as I stay up there, out of reach.

Gerson’s on her Blackberry, its lime green cover dancing as she thumbs profanities out to Twitter, lifting the damn thing to take photographs. She’ll be there as they tear my flesh and start feeding. I hit the last slide and we’re into Q&A. The questions are smart, businesslike. But I hear the rasp of indrawn breath through teeth in little sussurations, “Fff Fff Fff Fff Fff.”

One of the ladies smiles at me and I realise her canines are unusually developed.

Q&A is halted by the arrival of the main course and as I sit down I realise to my horror that Gerson’s legged it. When it’s so bad the journalists leave, you know things are going to get sadistically twisted fast. I’m still talking, trying to distract them. Pam and Karen are delightful company but I can feel the pressure around me. They’re just pretending to be interested so that they can move in when I’m relaxed. You don’t want the prey to be tensed up, ruins the meat.

And then it happens, the miracle arrives. The Beach Rotana’s chocolate covered chocolate mousse on a bed of chocolate and biscuit, drizzled with chocolate sauce and decorated with a long white chocolate twist. It’s an incredible dessert and I realise then that it’s distracted them – all eyes are on the plates and I have a window of escape. I babble thanks at them, but they’re not seeing me, forks rising and falling and little gasps of delight echoing around the room.

I grab my laptop bag and run, bursting through the door to freedom and the light of the lobby, chocolate still smeared across my cheek. My heart doesn’t stop hammering until I’m in the car and tearing up the blacktop to Dubai.

One day I’m going to get even with Gerson. One day.

The Arab Media Awards Changes

Image by sebFlyte via Flickr

Changes have been announced to The Arab Media Awards, a move that at least partly explains the stream of decidedly odd tweets emanating from the Dubai Press Club Twitter handle yesterday.

According to reports today, the awards are going to change to take more account of online media and young professionals. The inclusion of young journalists has been accomplished by adding a new award for, wait for it, 'Young Arab Journalist'.

As for online, the new focus for the awards, recognising the tectonic shifts that are shaking the world of print media around the world, has been accomplished by removing the word 'print' from the name of the awards.

If the story is complete, then there's no new award or category of awards for online journalism. Just the removal of the word 'print'...

So that's it. That's the evidence that these awards now recognise online journalism and which justifies Gulf News' headline, "Revamped award to cover all aspects of journalism".