media Archives - Circles in the SandCircles in the Sand

There must have been about 40 people huddled around the glow of the video conference screen – I was head-down at my desk, a little buried with a busy workload due to two magazines going to press. But I got caught up in the razzmatazz from London about our company’s restructuring. The words on everyone’s lips, Have we been sold?

No, we hadn’t. Far from it, things were going to be digital-tastic. The digital future was bright – so bright, they played the video presentation again, in case we’d missed anything the first time about our journey to Planet Digital.

For anyone still not sure, there was also an article on the Guardian website, in which the chief exec spelt out that, over the next 12 to 18 months, all of our titles would become digital only.

I looked down at the proofs on my desk with an unblinking gaze. A pile of magazine supplements stared back at me from my in-tray. I swallowed hard. I’m adaptable, I told myself. I already do some work on the company’s digital side. I run a blog, I thought! A Circles in the Sand Facebook page. I even occasionally Tweet. I can do digital (right?)

Except I kind of like our print editions.

Without giving away the name of the company I work for, it’s been going for a long time. In fact, it wouldn’t be over-egging it to say it’s been a publishing institution for more than 70 years.

Surely print can’t be dead until you can safely take hundreds of pounds of electronics into the bath?

I took my first job with them 20 years ago, worked on and off for various titles for years, then, by chance, got hired by the Dubai office here. For a girl who loves magazines so much, I even took a post-grad diploma in them, it’s been the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do – other than write books, but that’s a whole new kettle of fish.

I sort-of knew this was coming. Across the company’s portfolio, 67 per cent of revenues are from digital and events. Digital subscriptions are apparently the format customers want to engage with. Newsweek went ‘digital only’ after 79 years in print in early 2013, and commentators say almost all magazines will eventually go purely electronic. The message for publishing is clear – paper products have had their day.

Or have they? Aren’t there still people out there who’d prefer to read printed words rather than look at a screen? Aren’t there tonnes of avid readers, like me, who love magazines and book stores? Buying a magazine with a beautiful cover feels like treating myself to a present, every time – is that really so old fashioned?

I decided to ask around at work. Holding my pile of proofs, I rubbed the tips of my fingers against the edge of the pages, and asked one of the young, whippersnapper journalists: “But what about reading magazines on the loo?”

He looked at me, bemused, as though seeing me for the first time. “You can read your iPad on the loo, you know.”

“The bath, then?” I ventured. I hate taking my iPad into the bath as it really doesn’t enjoy getting wet.

“And how about the psychological satisfaction of not only starting to read a magazine, but finishing it? Of putting it down knowing you’ve got through it, without hundreds of seductive hyperlinks that take you down the internet garden path.”

Of course, when I got home and asked my children which format they preferred, the answer was a no-brainer for them. “The iPad,” chorused my screenagers. Their eyes went round and they crinkled their noses at my suggestion they could read more books.

So how about you? How do you read magazines? Are they still relevant in an age of free online content, social media and 24/7 news – or has print been trumped?

Postscript: So a little later, I find myself troubleshooting the boys’ X-box – a chore that always makes me feel like someone’s jumping on my chest. Once fixed, Raptor asks me to turn the volume up. “It’s the button on the side, Mummy!” He waggles his eyebrows. His confidence in my digital future is etched all over his face. “… It says V on it.” Oh the faith…!

There’s something I’ve learnt about work in Dubai – it’s quite different from being gainfully employed back in the UK or US.

You can ‘get away’ with things here – so you hear stories such as my friend’s tale about a meeting in which her boss got angry and swirled around to tell her colleague, “My, you look spotty!”

On the job section of a website called Dubizzle, you’ll quickly find adverts that specify what nationality they’re looking for, or not. For example, ‘Models & promoters needed (No Filipinos)’; and another stating, ‘Only expats or Russian girls may apply.’

After just five minutes of living in Dubai you realise that with so many people from South Asia terrified of losing their jobs, working conditions are not always what they should be – and nor is the pay.

But I didn’t mean to dwell on the negative stuff, because actually the chance to work with such a diverse mix of people from all over the world (not to mention the tax-free extra dirhams) has been wonderful. My intention was merely to point out some differences I’ve noticed.

So yesterday, when a publishing company I won’t name asked me to come into the office for “a couple of hours” to do some proof-reading, what they really meant was “would you give up 10 hours of your time to re-write swathes of copy put together by writers from Syria, Egypt, etc, whose first language is most definitely not English.”

Spot the difference: H&M adverts featuring sexy Brazilian model Giselle were censored for the Dubai market

I’m also finding out that there are certain things you won’t ‘get away with’ in the media industry here. I’ve been told that designers and journalists who have put together a layout with a camel above a sheikh have lost their jobs – and international publications have been known to have inappropriate images (like a rear view of a naked woman at the back of The Times Style magazine) blacked out with marker pen.

This is apparently done by those doing time in the UAE. And anything deemed offensive may also be ripped out. One publisher had government approval to write about wine for a food book. Once the book was published, the decision was apparently reversed and the book was sold with the wine chapter listed on the contents page, but no chapter actually in the book!

To date, I don’t think I’ve said anything on my humble blog to get me deported. And working down in Media City, where there are numerous good-quality magazines, from Time Out to Esquire, has been a really positive experience.

And when I went to see the movie Friends with Benefits the other night, it had been so heavily cut, there was no evidence of any benefits at all!

Perhaps my biggest challenge has been the projects I’ve taken on from home, because at the moment I’m finding working at home to be the equivalent of walking up the Burj Khalifa backwards in Jimmy Choos.

It’s just too tempting to think, “I’ll just squeeze in that mammoth grocery shop / go through that drawer of clutter / lie down for a quick nap.” And, the hardest one to resist, hearing the kids the other side of the wall being looked after by our nanny.

I keep finding myself at the computer at 11pm trying to catch up. Hence I was intrigued by a couple of jobs landed by friends of mine recently (as a quick aside, it never ceases to amaze me how expat women here who don’t want to work full-time, don’t want to have another baby but want to do something to stave off boredom, reinvent themselves – sometimes several times over).

So my friend who was a nurse, and discovered that the pay here for this particular profession is abysmal, is now a chocolate taster for the Mars factory! And another pal, who used to be an airline pilot in the US, became a mystery shopper (she actually got paid to shop!) and now reviews movies for Virgin Radio Dubai.

Perhaps the answer is to only accept jobs that take me into an office in Media City, where household distractions aren’t a problem – except all the girls down there are young and thin, with sashaying hips, trendy clothes and perfectly flicked frizz-free hair.

Anyway, enough – I’m procrastinating again and must get back to editing a delightfully bad feature (because there’s only so many times I can tell them my lack of productivity is due to our internet being down).

PHOTO CREDITS: TNT Magazine; Collider.com