Business Editor Slams 'Sloppy' UK Media Reporting on Dubai

**Tim Elliott** (0:00)
So, Morning Drive, it's Mira Business FM, Dubai continuing to dominate global business conversations, but do people abroad fully understand the scale of what's happening here? That's the question. So, here to talk about inaccurate reporting, plus the biggest takeaways from the briefing by Arabian Business, we'll come to that, which featured kind of major players from shaping the region's future, I suppose, is a leading regional business editor. He's from Arabian Business and he's also the CEO Middle East editor.
Justin Harper, good to see you again.

**Justin Harper** (0:36)
Tim, thanks for having me on the show and thank you for that amazing introduction. I feel like I can leave now because it will only go downhill after this.

**Tim Elliott** (0:43)
Well, I think so, but let's try and go slightly in a northward direction, just slightly. Just for anybody who missed a LinkedIn post, and this is where the first part of our conversation kind of comes from today, got a lot of attention, this post.
What was the headline of the article? The Dubai Riviera has been reduced to a millionaire ghost town. This was a headline from the United Kingdom. There were pictures of an empty beach, some covered cars. Just give us the gist of what you were saying in response to this article.

**Justin Harper** (1:16)
Yeah, there's many posts and we'll have to name names, a Daily Mail, a classic for that kind of sensational journalism. And I've done it a couple of times and I often ignore it because I sometimes think don't give them credit for it. And this one popped up about these cars covered in tarpaulins and these empty beaches. And already people were starting to comment and say, have you seen this post, the actual original article? And I said, no. And when I looked at it already, I was like, hang on a minute.
This is like the summer, there's people not on the beaches, or this picture looks quite old. Like really, you can tell from an old picture. And these cars, like even where I live, there's cars covered all the time in tarpaulins. And so already it was like, the images are really misleading.
The headline again, and I was like, Riviera. People were joking. I didn't know we lived in a Riviera. It's just the language they use. And I just couldn't stop myself by coming on and really just, I guess the word is defending, but trying to be playful with it. Because you can get angry about something and you could say, look, this is inaccurate. This is misleading. You know, are you in Dubai? This kind of stuff there. And I just feel sometimes you can just play around with it a little bit. You could be sarcastic back, you know, and that sometimes has more impact.

**Tim Elliott** (2:32)
I think it does. It's interesting because it goes back to the other article recently was one in which eight British expats have left the UAE. And you think, well, hold on a minute. The obvious answer that is seven in eight are still here is the first point to be made. But then it was a number anything with lots of tourists would have left. They were leaving anyway.
It's very misleading. And it is kind of annoying. The covered car thing makes a lot of sense to cover your car if you go away for a month, doesn't it?

**Justin Harper** (3:04)
Exactly. You know, it gets sandy, it gets dirty. I hardly ever wash my car because I don't see the point. All the time you've washed it and you've driven out and you've got to somewhere, it's covered in dust and sand anyway.

**Tim Elliott** (3:14)
I love a bit of defeatism. That's the way I live my life.

**Justin Harper** (3:17)
Unless I'm trying to impress someone, but with my car, you can't really impress too many people. So it is, it's just someone who, it's by people who are out of touch. And I saw, this wasn't the mail, this was another newspaper in the UK. And I was at an event, it was called Battle of the Sexes, a man against a woman at the Coca-Cola Arena. I think it was earlier, I think it was earlier this year before the conflict started. And I went along to it, I was like tennis, I watched it. And the man, I think it was Nick Kirios.

**Tim Elliott** (3:48)
It was, yeah, yeah.

**Justin Harper** (3:50)
So he won, and then it became, after it was clear that he was gonna win, then everyone relaxed and everyone had a bit of fun, and they kind of jostled with each other. I can't remember the name, the woman, the world number one sibling, do you know who I mean?