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Al Watan Daily responds

I got the below email from an editor at Al Watan Daily regarding the animals at the Friday Market post:

Hi Mark,
I’m the local editor of Al Watan Daily, and I would like to start off by saying that when I read your post last night, I was livid. No newspaper wants to print misinformation, that is not our goal, least of all mine. Our lead had actually originated from an Arab Times report that came two weeks ago, and we performed a follow up. In today’s Arab Times on page 3, you can see they were confused over the matter as well, because they had not reported that the animals were trapped. [Link] However, they do corroborate our story.

From Arab Times update: “Meanwhile Abu Sulaiman Al-Hadad, one of the shopkeepers, claimed that he, along with other proprietors, have not accessed their shops since these were shut down on Oct 15. “My animals have been imprisoned for more than two weeks and have all died from starvation,” he complained. Asked if he had entered his shop at all during this period he said it’s “impossible”. “If any of us is caught entering a shop we’d be obliged to pay a fine of KD 500, along with other legal action,” Al-Hadad said.”

Now, I did not sleep last night, I really didn’t, over your post, and the image it portrays, as well as some of the comments that followed. I planned to come in this morning and set the record straight, by either finding confirmation that our reporter had done their job correctly, or that she had failed in my trust in her. In the case of the latter, I had already informed my General Manager that I would print a retraction.

However, in the case that you were wrong in your citizen journalism, which is the case in my opinion, I feel that you should print an update, and perhaps even slant it towards recognizing that we were not printing misinformation and that perhaps you and the commenters on the post were quick to jump the gun at our expense.

Khaled Al-Ramly
Local Editor
Al Watan Daily

A blog reader also posted the following comment awhile ago:

I went there few hours ago, and the situation is:
All the shops are closed
4 or 5 from the ex employee are sitting there
I asked them about how do they feed the animals inside, and they answered with:
NO WE CANT, The shops are closed by the municipality and there is a sticker attached on each shop’s door and they cant open the door and they cant remove those stickers.
All the dogs inside are whining and barking from being without a food, water, air and also without light.

Its just a big MESS

-Ramez

I’ve contacted K’s Path regarding this issue and I am still waiting for a response. K’s Path are a Kuwaiti non-profit working to improve the lives of animals by protecting and preserving them and the places they live.

Update: I just found this article from todays Arab Times where Ayesha who is responsible for Animal Friend’s and K’s Path said the following:

Ayesha Al-Humaidhi, from Animal Friends League of Kuwait, assured that shopkeepers do have access to the shops and tend to their animals. “They do enter their shops and do conduct their business, but they can’t run their business openly until they settle the rent dispute with the Municipality,” she said. [Source]

Updates2: Ayesha emailed me back stating:

We have investigated the situation and most of the information around is incorrect. The shop keepers are able to enter their stores and care for the animals. We have a volunteer that knows many of the shopkeepers very well and he has visited them multiple times and spoken to them throughout the last two weeks of closure and they are still able to enter their shops. In fact you can even buy things from them they just can’t officially open their doors for business. On the weekends and evening you will see them outside on the road selling so clearly they can get in. Also the area has been closed for two weeks, if it was true that these animals have not been fed then they would all be dead at this point but you can hear them in the shops. Basically the welfare at the Friday Market has always been bad but it is not a whole lot worse at the moment.

We are hoping this rental disagreement with the Baladiya will be resolved soon. We are waiting to see.

35 replies on “Al Watan Daily responds”

@bladi… if u read the al watan daily article about this issue, you would see that they did do their own investigation. “Al Watan Daily went to the animal market in Al Rai area and witnessed the disaster first hand.” That sentence right there means they went and investigated. The word “lead” implies that Arab Times broke the story, which is what happens in the newspaper world, if u didn’t know. Al Watan Daily received the report. Therefore, because it is news, they sent a reporter to cover it. Before you criticize something, make sure you got your facts and definitions right.

Poor Editor didn’t sleep.

So we’re the animals left to die in the shops as you reported or were store owners feeding and taking care of their animals? The Arab times article linked claims opposite of what Al-Watan said.

Also, @ Ramez’s visit to the shops, so the Animals are still barking inside the shop’s that have been locked since Oct. 15th? It is now 19 days after the shop-owners have been supposedly locked completely out of the stores, odd to hear that dogs can live that long with no food and water.

I don’t think there are any credible sources here, newspapers and residents who are conducting their own investigations seems to conclude at a conversation with an “Abu Suleiman” that is just sitting outside the store.

so we need an eye to be there 24/7 to check these guys over there if they r able to open the shops and feed the dogs or they r lying or what is the real story 🙁
I dont know

No Ramez, the information being posted does not add up. Also, the owners are more likely to to tell their employees waiting outside the store to tell anyone asking that they can’t feed the animals, it benefits their cause if the public thinks that the animals can’t be accessed.

Mark,

1. The Al Watan Daily reporter had lot of ‘Feelings’ for you and your blog post.
2. The Al Watan Daily reporter is not taking any responsibility, and he claims to have followed up on some other newspapers report. To me… he is taking a step backwards and I’m pretty sure, there would not be any more coverage in Al Watan Daily newspaper on this topic.
3. The next time you post, please do not quote the name of the newspaper and provide a link. Just post that a ‘Famous Arabic Daily / English Daily’.
4. One among the very few things I do every day without fail is, to read your blog. What I mean to say is, I want you to continue blogging without getting yourselves in any sort of legal trouble.
So… please stay away from the A*sH^%es.
5. No one news is consistent, in particular in Kuwait. Anyone can hire couple of people to make their story appear true.

BTW, I have to complement you on your Courageous Citizen Journalism. Keep up your good work mate.

i think the owners are using this theory that the animals are not being fed to start their shops again….why cant they just resolve the rent dispute???? the animals have to be fed or someone could put a case against them for animal cruelty….probably the animal welfare people!!

I was out of Q8 all this time!
Why didn’t anybody and everybody protest and write to cnn or bbc or animals rights????
The strange issue is that; there are many people in q8 that care about animals!!!
I can’t believe how that could happen.
How about if residents went there and opened the doors to feed, release the innocent animals???
I can’t believe the stupidity of this MESS!!! easy solutions can be made!!!

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON PEOPLE?! I’m all confused now……..are there hungry animals drowning in their own shit’n’piss -YES OR NO?!………WTF MARK!!LOL

Something is fishy about this whole affair. I can’t imagine the government, or the shopkeepers intentionally starving the animals. This is beyond belief. Not even a sociopath would do something so grotesque.

Mark, it seems to me that someone used your love of animals to achieve a favorable bargaining position for the shops rent in the Friday market.

Cheers

I still cant believe that you guys actually believed that the owners don’t feed there animals ..

in what religion is that ?

We spoke to several shop owners and they all stated that they are able to feed their animals and clean their shops ( and they have also witnessed other shop owners doing so too), they are just not allowed to sell anything.

Now i don’t know who is telling the truth here. But either way, something has to be done and someone has to be penalized for letting those animals die of starvation.

ok is there any proof that the animals are starving and dieing ? they could be whining and barking because there is no owner and it’s something different in there routine. they can’t possibly survive without water for 2 weeks.

some owners might be saying that they are not allowed to go inside and feed the animals to get peoples attention, just go down there and look at the stores doors, if they do have the so called stickers on the door which will break by opining the door then it’s the truth.

most of these store have aquariums and most fish can go 2-3 weeks max without food.

That editor has some serious issues. He had trouble sleeping over a two bit post published in a tawdry blog that has 1/1000th the readership of Al Watan. WTF!!!

Compared to a mass circulation daily newspaper it’s most definitely so. It also seems that q8teacher, like most of my teachers is a m*****r f****r.

Viral… Looks like “no one did any fact checking” before they posted or ran this story. That’s how ugly rumors get started.

So Al-Watan is wrong, and the editor looks like a bigger idiot than he originally was. Hope his foot fits in his mouth, where it belongs.

P.S. Al-Watan: if you want your paper to be taken seriously, don’t start your articles with tabloid style writing “Only in Kuwait”

The problem here is plain and simple… There are NO professional journalists reporting for English-language newspapers in Kuwait! PERIOD.

And why should there be? These people get paid 150-500 KD per month… do you think you any of the local news you are reading is written by intelligent or highly-educated people who have journalistic ingetrity and a burning desire to follow up and check their facts like they are supposed to!!??
OF COURSE NOT!! Would you if you were living on 400 KD? Or would you be hitting up all the Zain press conference hoping for a free phone and doing “restaurant reviews” to hook up some free meals?

When you pay peanuts… you get monkeys… its really that simple!

The only reporting you can really trust in Kuwait comes from officials who agree to have their names printed in full with their titles when divulging info.
As soon as the infamous “sources” and Abu This and That start providing the basis for all the information in an article… you really should only continue reading for you personal amusement.

PS: The editor in this case is really not the one to blame. There is a sacred bond between editor and reporter and it has been broken in this case.
When a reporter tells an editor that they have checked the facts… that means they have CHECKED the facts!

In my opinion, while it is the editor that should get the overall blame for this, and the accompanying shtick… the reporter responsible for this should bear the ultimate blame… because having thier name appear in the paper again would simply make a mockery of Al Watan Daily!

Lol! What a mockery this is turning into against AlWatan. They never had any sort of credibility to start off with, why think that they will now!
I believe Ayesha. Don’t think she’s the sort that will want to benefit from anything like that, or otherwise she wouldn’t be working in the job she is right now..
God save us from all this

I suggest a couple of you guys research, make a report with facts and submit it to KUNA or something or another newspaperr, just to make Al watan look bigger A#$% than they are already…including the nugget editor….:P

150kd-200kd a month to report wrong or incorrect news! Wow! Where can I sign up? I’m already doing it for free! I may as well go work for al watan and get paid for it!

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