Pollyanna-ish or simply clueless? Saudi Press Agency, in its coverage of the Jeddah floods, has managed to anger residents who didn’t actually get around to splashing happily in the rain and puddles, reports Arab News…

SPA makes Jeddawis dance with anger
Turki Al-Dakheel | Al-Watan, www.turkid.net

The Saudi Press Agency’s (SPA) reports on last Wednesday’s rain have angered Jeddah residents. “The SPA reporter found the people, particularly children and women, enjoying the heavy downpour that the city was not used to over the past many years.

Many of them headed to the Corniche beach to enjoy this happy and wonderful weather,” was how the news agency reported the catastrophe, as people struggled against the water that was engulfing their homes, claiming many lives.

This is how the official news agency reported the ravages of the unprecedented devastation that accompanied the torrential rain in Jeddah.

I wonder why SPA should stray far from the harsh realities in its reports. Even the minister of information said its coverage of the tragedy was humiliating to the families of victims.
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Frankly, the days of ‘official’ press agencies is gone, replaced by 24/7 satellite TV news, radio, the Internet, and even cell phones. Government do, perhaps, need a channel through which official texts, in full, can be published, but they do not need news organs to spin news events. That could be left to a free press, even a semi-free press.