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I’ve been watching “Inside the National” whenever I get the chance. For those who don’t know, Abu Dhabi TV and The National newspaper have teamed up to offer you the reader/viewer a sneak peak into tomorrow’s news.
What the National has done is shoot itself in the foot - actually its shot both its feet.

First, they have admitted to us that the paper we read every morning, the one made of dead trees, is already dated (hence the need for a show the night before telling us what will be on tomorrow). The National prides itself on the intelligence of the readers, haven’t they realized that intelligent people get there news on the internet and on the blogs? Why doesn’t the National have an online blog? And why doesn’t every employee from the Editor-in-Chief down to the tea boy regularly contribute to the blog?

Second, we have conformation that every employee in the National is an expat who hasn’t been in the UAE for more than 3 years. The population born and raised in the Emirates, the ones who know the country inside-out, is largely ignored. Rather, the National has become an orgy-fest of elitist groupthink reporters from the (failing) newspapers of the West.

How many “journalists” at the National have experience working in a UAE-based company, or in anything that requires making money? How many have worked in the UAE bureaucracy? – Let alone in construction, plumbing, or anything else that requires the use of one’s hands? How many of them are willing to give up their lucrative salaries to take a stand against the corporate executives, or Arab governments, who have been responsible for wiping out the entire Gulf financial system and making the Middle East the biggest economic loser in the world?

No, the National Newspaper is part of the Abu Dhabi bureaucracy, dressed up in the guise of a “professional, independent” newspaper. Like all AD bureaucracy, they are doomed to inertia.

I don’t mean to pick-on the National, because Gulf News is equally disingenuous. The folks at Gulf News lecture us on the need to make the world a greener place, to live without A/C or water in the heart of the brutal Arabian desert, to boycott the Atlantis, etc… but of course to buy their tree killing paper whose quality is worse than toilet paper (both the actual paper-pulp and its written content) and to participate in their gas-guzzling desert-desecrating “Fun Drives.” The only advantage Gulf News has is 30 years of experience in the UAE, something the National lacks.

Of course there is no freedom of speech in this country and that is a factor, but with the quality of journalism in the major papers, there never will be.

Here is the first episode of “Inside the National:”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9puG-fWXVEU