Why is the local media so afraid to mention brands in the news? Why not just say a car crashed into X-Cite? It’s a fact, it’s not a rumor and I find it frustrating that they do this.
It’s bad enough when newspapers report on food products that were pulled from the local market for being hazardous but then don’t mention the brand. In this case, it’s just ridiculous they didn’t mention X-Cite. [Link]
22 replies on “A wellknown electronics showroom”
Everyone is afraid of being sued? (Beni Hana) 😛
It’s because of advertising. They don’t want to print anything that could potentially upset their clients in any way. They’re playing it safe.
Yup as others have mentioned, mostly legality issues. Along with many other related reasons.
What legality issues are there in a newspaper reporting the news? It’s their job
True, but it can be seen as advertising or even de-advertising. The company involved can press charges on publisher.
But I have never heard about a specific law… Would like to hear Fajer’s view about this.
“de-advertising” <– YOU WIN THE INTERNET FOR TODAY!
Looool
I was trying to think of a word opposite to advertising
Another one bites the dust (deportation)
Deportation jokes are so last week
Welcome to Kuwait, the magic sand pit where nothing makes sense.
This `magic sand pit` makes more sense than the air being wasted in your lungs.
Your existence in this magic sand pit is magic in itself.
Maybe you’re digging too much into this. In many cases, they don’t report the nationality of the expat criminal, just ‘Asian man caught…’ or ‘Arab man caught…’. Sometimes, they do mention the nationality. The journalist faces criticism. Pakistanis complaining, why no mention of Indians only when Pakistani commits crime – the nationality is mentioned?
Pakistanis insist that the Kuwait Times journalist is Indian, when in actuality the journalist is Kuwaiti (Hanan al-Saadoun). They were digging too much into it.
Let it go mark, just let it go
In the case for the car incident, it’s legality as well as indirect marketing like mentioned above.
You struck a chord with me Mark. It lowers the quality of the reports and it frustrates me no end. I always wonder – is reporting so low class in Kuwait. One journalist told me most of it is because of restrictions on newspapers and threats to shut them down if they identify organisations or criminals. Somebody or atleast most of the MPs should change or bring in a law so that journalists in Kuwait can do their job properly instead of having bullshit quality newspaper reports like the ones we see on crime reporting or news reporting.
For instance there will be other international papers naming the full name on their website of a criminal but the local newspapers like will mention them by initial. What do you understand by AG or KG did something ?
Then the above mentioned case of nationality. If you find a criminal you name him or you don’t name him. why do you want to report his nationality. News should be like XYZ name did this crime or it should be a thief got into this store. Not one Indian or Pakistani or Egyptian did this. This kind of reporting bring about bias in society towards certain nationalities which is highly irresponsible because black sheep are there in every nationality.
I hope MPs of Kuwait really care about Kuwait and the importance of a good free press and do some work for the constitution and Kuwait instead of doing silly grillings and billings and commotions. I also hope that Kuwaitis raise these issues with their MPs and keenly observe their local candidate and vote out the MPs who don’t perform this role in the next election.
Journalism is low quality in Kuwait, and it falls into tabloid journalism more and more everyday, mainly because that’s what the readers want, and Kuwaitis do love their gossip, rumors and scandals.
As for individual names, I’m pretty certain that there is a law that protects individual’s reputation and prevents newspapers to print full names. I believe that certain crimes and when the person has been sentenced then the newspaper can publish their names.
I think it has to do with the Press & Publication Law whereby you’re not allowed to name organizations/individuals in certain cases.
I’m pretty sure maybe a journo or two read the blog, how about they respond?
Another example:
A truck with x bottles of liquor entering Kuwait from a ‘neighbouring country’ was siezed.
Obviously a truck would enter from a neighbouring country. It won’t fly in directly from Europe or the Far East yeah? What’s the harm in naming said country? They gonna attack us?
In other news: Quantities of As Is items of a well-known electronics showroom have spiked in the last couple of days. LMAO 😀
I used to work at an English language newspaper, and caused a problem once by trying to get around this BS. One of the reporters filed a report on a big restaurant chain that was scraping off leftover salad from plates and placing it back into the salad bar, direct from an employees mouth. So we ran that this was “allegedly” happening at a big chain, and couldn’t mention the name. I however placed a “general purpose” restaurant picturing showing it. Needless to say, I was called in and had to print a retraction because the large, owning corporation, which spends a lot of ad money, called the marketing team and yelled.
How to troll newspapers in Kuwait:
1. Established company and name it “Wellknown”.
2. Make it well known and popular brand.
3. Crash car into it.
4. Report accident to all newspapers.
5. Sue them when they use term “wellknown” because it’s actual name of your company.