Letter to The National Newspaper from Fujairah

Thank you for another complimentary copy of The National. As a Fujairah resident it is difficult to sign up for a subscription when there is so little news reported in The National relating to the emirate of Al Fujairah.

The depth and international breadth of your newspaper’s stories is appreciated but to pay for the paper to be delivered to their door, residents of the north-eastern emirate need to feel their growing and rapidly changing region is being regularly investigated and covered.

Fujairah got a mention in today’s paper in the form of a brief notice about this weekend’s fashion exhibition, which is a first for Fujairah.

Disappointingly there did not appear to be any article on the major Middle Eastern conference (DCC MEA) in Fujairah this week for those buying and selling the latest electronics and digital devices.

There was a flurry of in-depth articles on Fujairah last month—five over two days (3-4 April 2010)—when a journalist visited Fujairah for the Easter weekend.

When I last wrote to you on this subject, a read of the paper that day (1 March 2010) revealed no references to any happenings in Fujairah. Furthermore, a search of the online edition during the month of February showed that while the word ‘Fujairah’ appeared 24 times, most of these were fleeting mentions. Only three articles and one online video contained any substantial information on Fujairah.

Put ‘Al Ain’ or ‘Ain’ into the search engine and see the startling contrast. In the Arts and Life segment on 1 March there was a two page calendar on upcoming cultural and sporting events in the UAE. Oasis picks out plenty of cultural highlights in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and to a lesser extent Dubai but after that it appears that all other emirates are a cultural, sporting and epicurean desert.

Until The National takes the smaller emirates seriously the subscription drive is not likely to yield the desired results and all UAE residents and international readers will be the poorer. Your journalists must rove into all regions of the country for this newspaper to adequately live up to its name.

Geoff Pound

Connect with Geoff Pound on Facebook, Twitter or at geoffpound(at)gmail.com

Image: The front page of today’s edition of The National.