Do you wonder what journalists hear? Have you wondered, do they write what they hear? Or do they just write what they want to hear despite what may have been said is totally opposite to what was written!
What happens when two reporters speak to the same source and give us two different stories, especially when the two reporters are from the same newspaper group? Please note the contrasting views between Gulf News and its new sister concern the Xpress, pasted one after the other.
Event: Seminar on 'Seismic Hazards in the Gulf'
Speaker: Angus McFarlane, Technical Director of Building Structures, Hyder Consulting Middle East.
Organizer: Dubai Municipality in cooperation with Hyder Consulting Middle East.
Date: 11 April 2007
Gulf News headline: Earthquake risk in Dubai 'lower than that of London'
Xpress headline: Earthquake Risk For Low-Rises
Gulf News: The seismic risk in Dubai is lower than that of London and it is not dangerous as has been reported in some risk assessment reports, said an expert.
Xpress: A major earthquake could “flatten” low-rise neighbourhoods since Dubai’s building code has only quake-proofed buildings five stories and higher, warned a seismic engineer yesterday at a municipal conference.
Gulf News: "There is also no possibility of a tsunami in this region because Arabian Gulf waters are not deep enough to trigger a tsunami," said Angus McFarlane, Technical Director of Building Structures at Hyder Consulting Middle East.
Xpress: Tough revisions are needed to the city’s building code to standardise the future construction of all buildings in Dubai, tall or short, said Angus McFarlane of Hyder Consulting Middle East.
Gulf News: Khalid Mohammad Saleh, Director of the Building Department at Dubai Municipality, ... "While the UAE is relatively safe from seismic activity due to the nature of its soil, there is a growing national emphasis on seismic risk assessment and seismic design requirements for new structures," he said.
Xpress: The current 1997 building code, says McFarlane, imposes tight earthquake design specifications for high-rise construction but completely ignores buildings four stories and under.
Smaller buildings, he said “are stiffer and therefore attract a higher proportion of seismic loading than taller buildings”.
Gulf News:"Minimum distance to Zagros Fault from the UAE is 120km but Dubai is not at high risk in case of any seismic movement on the fault," said McFarlane.
Xpress: McFarlane called the lack of building code coverage for shorter buildings “totally illogical” given that there is a real, but remote, chance of damage from quake activity in what is known as the dormant fault off the UAE coast and highly active areas of southern Iran.
It is mind boggling to think both reporters were at the same press conference! Who was hearing what? Did they all play Chinese whisper or copy it off the press release? The issue does not arise on the possibility of an earthquake, which neither paper deny? Rather, the question is - what are the reporters reporting?
The Gulf News reporter seems to be dismissing all the possible warnings issued by "the expert" and does not even see the bigger story, that buildings 'four stories or under' in Dubai are not earthquake proof - which make up most of Dubai barring SZR, Marina and a a few places in Deira and Bur Dubai! Did the Xpress reporter catch on onto the larger picture of what was being said? You decide!
“We are so cleverly manipulated and influenced by the media and establishments on both the right and left, that the truth has become hopelessly lost in semantics.” ~ Jules Carlysle (Canadian Author and Humorist)
Related Articles:
Earthquake risk in Dubai 'lower than that of London' - Gulf News
Earthquake Risk For Low-Rises - Xpress
UAE plans earthquake monitoring centre - Gulf News
Earthquake hits UAE's East Coast - Gulf News
Bigger quake possible, says academic - Gulf News
What happens when two reporters speak to the same source and give us two different stories, especially when the two reporters are from the same newspaper group? Please note the contrasting views between Gulf News and its new sister concern the Xpress, pasted one after the other.
Event: Seminar on 'Seismic Hazards in the Gulf'
Speaker: Angus McFarlane, Technical Director of Building Structures, Hyder Consulting Middle East.
Organizer: Dubai Municipality in cooperation with Hyder Consulting Middle East.
Date: 11 April 2007
Gulf News headline: Earthquake risk in Dubai 'lower than that of London'
Xpress headline: Earthquake Risk For Low-Rises
Gulf News: The seismic risk in Dubai is lower than that of London and it is not dangerous as has been reported in some risk assessment reports, said an expert.
Xpress: A major earthquake could “flatten” low-rise neighbourhoods since Dubai’s building code has only quake-proofed buildings five stories and higher, warned a seismic engineer yesterday at a municipal conference.
Gulf News: "There is also no possibility of a tsunami in this region because Arabian Gulf waters are not deep enough to trigger a tsunami," said Angus McFarlane, Technical Director of Building Structures at Hyder Consulting Middle East.
Xpress: Tough revisions are needed to the city’s building code to standardise the future construction of all buildings in Dubai, tall or short, said Angus McFarlane of Hyder Consulting Middle East.
Gulf News: Khalid Mohammad Saleh, Director of the Building Department at Dubai Municipality, ... "While the UAE is relatively safe from seismic activity due to the nature of its soil, there is a growing national emphasis on seismic risk assessment and seismic design requirements for new structures," he said.
Xpress: The current 1997 building code, says McFarlane, imposes tight earthquake design specifications for high-rise construction but completely ignores buildings four stories and under.
Smaller buildings, he said “are stiffer and therefore attract a higher proportion of seismic loading than taller buildings”.
Gulf News:"Minimum distance to Zagros Fault from the UAE is 120km but Dubai is not at high risk in case of any seismic movement on the fault," said McFarlane.
Xpress: McFarlane called the lack of building code coverage for shorter buildings “totally illogical” given that there is a real, but remote, chance of damage from quake activity in what is known as the dormant fault off the UAE coast and highly active areas of southern Iran.
It is mind boggling to think both reporters were at the same press conference! Who was hearing what? Did they all play Chinese whisper or copy it off the press release? The issue does not arise on the possibility of an earthquake, which neither paper deny? Rather, the question is - what are the reporters reporting?
The Gulf News reporter seems to be dismissing all the possible warnings issued by "the expert" and does not even see the bigger story, that buildings 'four stories or under' in Dubai are not earthquake proof - which make up most of Dubai barring SZR, Marina and a a few places in Deira and Bur Dubai! Did the Xpress reporter catch on onto the larger picture of what was being said? You decide!
“We are so cleverly manipulated and influenced by the media and establishments on both the right and left, that the truth has become hopelessly lost in semantics.” ~ Jules Carlysle (Canadian Author and Humorist)
Related Articles:
Earthquake risk in Dubai 'lower than that of London' - Gulf News
Earthquake Risk For Low-Rises - Xpress
UAE plans earthquake monitoring centre - Gulf News
Earthquake hits UAE's East Coast - Gulf News
Bigger quake possible, says academic - Gulf News
1 comment:
i agree..sounds like both the reporters were attending 2 different conferences...perhaps 1 left before the interval and 1 turned up only after he interval...strange!
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