However, because there are now more than 50 local news websites, I have to limit myself to reading only a few of them because I can't possibly read them all.
But I may not be missing much because almost all of them almost all the time cover more or less the same news.
A trend I noticed is that when missing persons are found, only two factors are usually reported:
1) where the person was located,
2) and whether the person was found in good health.
Nothing is revealed as to why the person went missing.
A Maldivian editor told me the government does not reveal this information, and that the only reason why the person going missing is reported is with a view to help find/locate him/her.
In the latest such case, Muhammad Asir Ismail (pictured) was found after 13 days and "The Press" newspaper, quite predictably, doesn't say why he went missing: https://thepress.mv/141994
However, surprisingly, Dhiyares gave a little extra detail this time that Asir was found while he was sitting on a chair in the international terminal of Velana International Airport: https://dhiyares.com/47217
I used to wonder whether it was poor reporting on the newspapers' part in failing to give the reason for the person going missing. But due to what that editor told me, I now realize that newspapers can only report to the limits set by the government’s official sources.
Maldivians think only about funny things. News articles are also worth their attention if they think it is funny. Sometime ago there was an article about a Tiktok star girl being detained for a drugs related offense and her request to the police for a shaver to shave her private parts. This article was very entertaining. Hundreds of people shared it on social media. If someone goes missing, or is killed it's not entertaining enough to warrant the Maldivian attention.
ReplyDeleteSo if people are not supposed to be curious at all when someone goes missing and they aren't supposed to know any details of how and where a person is found and why he went missing in the first place, why don't newspapers just allocate a particular place for missing persons putting the name, address, photo and where he was last seen? Why bother to put it as a piece of news?
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