The Dark Side of Journalism

A debate over the Hari article and other Dubai-bashing stories, such as a recent piece in the Toronto Star titled 'Dubai how not to build a city' (this one in the whole "city of superlatives" sub-genre, and equally as bad as Hari's, laced with just as many cliches and factual and historical errors) is raging in the blogosphere, particularly on UAE blogs such as Grape Shisha, who posts about the Toronto story; Secret Dubai Diary (a blogger who surprisingly liked Hari's piece); and the UAE Community Blog, where SamuraiSam posts a hilarious piece titled Dark Side, in which he writes: "Dear international media, You need to write more articles that reference the 'dark side of Dubai', there are clearly not enough." Sam links to 12 articles, including stories by the BBC, The Guardian, ABC News, The Times, Time, and Bloomberg, which all use the 'Dark Side' in their melodramatic headlines. This is exactly why I thought Hari's piece was a parody. There's the 'Dark side of the Dubai dream', the 'Dark Side of Dubai's Boomtown', the Dark side of Dubai’s economic boom..., Carole Cadwalladr explores the dark side of Dubai, and - my favorite - 'The Dark Side of Splendor." What about 'The Dark Side of Journalism'?

Terry has written a particularly fine post on the subject (his last), 'This is my last Dubai goodbye', over at his blog Wide Angles Wine & Wanderlust. Do take a read.