Media Council to the Rescue!

You can count on British newspapers: After the shock, the ridicule. An image accompanying an article in the Sunday Times which shows Sheikh Mohammed ‘floundering in a sea of debt’ is deemed so offensive to the nation’s frail and fickle sensitivities as to spur the National Media Council into action and order removal of the ‘The Sunday Times’ and ‘Times of London’ print editions from the shelves of local news stands, according to this report in ‘The Wall Street Journal’.

Never mind the matter at heart of the controversy. The fact that investors were kept in the dark about Dubai’s ability and intention to repay its debt on time. The fact that this inconvenient truth was released only weeks after Dubai’s ruler told critics to ‘shut up’ and repeatedly reconfirmed that Dubai would honour its obligations - which evidently it is not. That fact that this announcement was made just hours before the financial markets in the UAE shut down for several days of public holidays and the government went ‘incommunicado’.

No, these facts matter not! What really matters is that nobody in this country reads about it.

The National Media Council can be relied on to save the day, and face. Never mind the cock up – as long as people don’t see the photo or read the story, ‘nothing happened’. Thank you, NMC; we can sleep easy in this country, unbothered by troublesome news.

Since the NMC hasn’t heard of that newfangled invention called internet yet, you can see the “offending” article and image here: