The western media certainly has an agenda when it comes to coverage of Dubai — that agenda is sales.
During a media conference in Scotland last August, James Murdoch, the heir-apparent of right wing media magnate Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, lashed out at the BBC and the British media regulator OFCOM for allowing the former to compete unfairly.
James argued that in order for his giant media conglomerate to survive the era of electronic news, it would have to charge its readers, and if the BBC continued to offer its vast network of news content for free on the web, corporations like his would be driven out of business.
In the free-market news industry espoused by Murdoch and in the dying days of print journalism in the West, this signifies a struggle between those who approach news with a profit-first perspective and those who approach it with, well, a news-first perspective.
The profit-first camp will therefore always look for content that will sell and will not hesitate to ‘sex-up' the stories that will serve their agenda; their sales agenda.
It is human nature to take comfort in the misfortune of others when you are faced with never ending wars, high unemployment, a crippling financial crisis and political turmoil.
That is where Dubai comes in. Dubai is a sexy story. So much so that it has become a regular butt of jokes on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, a badge of honour for Dubai residents with a sense of humour.
And that is where regional media have gone wrong. Coverage of Dubai does not come, at least not entirely, from an anti-Arab, anti-Muslim bias or from envy or a conspiracy to make the city fail.
Lumping the ‘western press' into a generalised monolith is almost as insulting as the recent Doha Debates motion that "[all of] Dubai is a bad idea". Westerners live here, many love living here and have contributed to the history this city is making. The diversity of the awestruck crowd that watched the launch of Burj Khalifa with pride is the best testament to that.
Nothing new
And while there undoubtedly have been anti-Arab undertones in the western press's coverage of Dubai, ranging from subtle ethnocentrism to blatant stereotyping, the phenomenon is not new and certainly does not amount to a conspiracy.
Sure, many of the Dubai-bashing sound bites in the British press have come from disgruntled westerners living in the UAE and, sadly, many of those who have been gloating over Dubai's troubles in recent times are residents of the city.
This has given ammunition to those who adopt the conspiratorial "us and them" attitude when it comes to expatriates, but has anyone ever asked whether this exclusionist attitude is the very cause of disgruntlement?
Dubai's image in the outside world can perhaps only be restored by expatriates who live here and would appear neutral and hence credible to the foreign journalists that parachute into the city.
Unfortunately, we cannot pay or force these expatriates to speak positively about Dubai.
The only thing that can be done is to make them feel included in the Dubai process. The traditionalists might cringe at this, but the fact is that expatriates are part and parcel of this city and have worked hard to build it hand-in-hand with Emiratis.
The city's best asset is its diversity, and that is what it should capitalise on in fighting the torrents of bad press.
Inclusion, however, is a two-way street. Emiratis will only go so far in trying to integrate expatriates if Dubai continues to be seen as a get-rich-quick destination whose residents cannot name the members of the federation without the help of Wikipedia.
Only with real integration can we get out of the mindset of victimhood and conspiracies and tackle our critics head on, armed with facts, figures and perhaps even some humour. That will hopefully eliminate the need to publish emotionally charged editorials where every other adjective-heavy paragraph ends with an exclamation mark.
A few months ago, I attended a casual weekend group discussion at the Shelter in Al Quoz to discuss the image of Dubai in the foreign press. Around 30 young Dubai residents, Emiratis and expatriates, sat in a circle speaking eloquently about what should be done to restore their city's image.
That is the Dubai I know. And it is to grassroots gatherings of this sort that we should be looking to help us restore Dubai's image.
Dubai's integrated youth, expatriates and Emiratis, who can speak the global language and understand the global mindset, are its untapped capital and they should be given a medium to express themselves.
