Saturday, 2 May 2009

Time to abandon the foreign perspective

It is not uncommon for a journalist at a UAE newspaper to get a sympathetic pat on the shoulder at revealing his or her job to someone they meet for the first time. "Oh, it must be so hard to deal with the censorship," is a common remark.

The answer to that is not easy. While it would be unrealistic to deny that there is censorship in the UAE, it is not easy to agree with it either.

An experience that I once had sums up the complexities of working as a reporter in the UAE. While working on a major local story in 2006, I was told that an official had called in demanding that I not tread on sensitive territory.

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