It appears as if the West, especially Brits, have long been lurking around for one good chance to kickstart their Dubai bashing campaign. The current global financial recession seems to have made their job easy. The way the Western media is portraying Dubai these days only makes the city appear the worst hit, and in many cases, the only one hit by the economic downturn. But how true are their claims and what made them resort to such negative portrayal of the city?

There’s no denying that Dubai’s economy has slowed down. But so has the world’s and there’s hardly any economy that has not been affected by the slump. And comparatively speaking, Dubai’s economy is still faring so much better than the other (so called) powerful economies of the world. So what is it that triggered the Brits to go the extra mile to remove the international limelight from this amazing city? If you follow what’s currently in the Western media’s shrill headlines, you won’t take time to be convinced that the emirate is on the point of becoming a deserted wasteland. But that’s all about the power of the Western media (and its manipulation), and the weakness of the local media.

Today, there’s nothing really positive about economies and investments. Things may have slowed down in Dubai but they haven’t crumbled completely as mirrored by the British media. Probably it’s the matter of creating ‘selling’ headlines – the British journalists must be professional enough know that two things sell most: the best and the worst. When there was fast growth in Dubai, the headlines went like ‘the best tourist destination of the world’, ‘the world’s financial capital’, ‘the best place to invest in real estate’ and so on. These headlines really sold, and not too long ago! Then came recession that hit the world’s biggest economies. Undeniably, Dubai was one of those and its economy also slowed down. Initially, the negative change served as hot-selling news and made headlines, but ultimately became boring. ‘Slowdown’ news slowed down in sales. So there was an urgent need to create news that sell, no matter how negative. There started Dubai bashing as Dubai had already been in the limelight and cashing it was quick, easy and proved very very lucrative.

Western Media soon realized how fruitful it was to catch and cash the Dubai bashing syndrome. The latest British additions to the ongoing anti-Dubai campaign include BBC’s famous program Panorama (episode ‘Slumdogs and Millionaires’), and The Independent’s bleak article ‘The Dark Side of Dubai’. And how could their American counterparts stay behind? A relevantly older addition to the campaign was an article titled ‘If Dubai Sneezes, Who Gets a Cold?’ published in Los Angeles Times.

All these ‘contributions’ may have earned their patrons some good fast cash in the hard days of recession, but might cause them to potentially lose their credibility in the near future when the reality finally unfolds. But Dubai itself is not intimidated by the ploy of the Western media. The city goes on to grow and find new ways to extricate itself from the whirlpool of the financial slump. While Dubai struggles its way out of the tough situation, let’s expect the Western media to get from bad to worse in its Dubai bashing campaign until it finds the good news to cash.