Media across the world had a couple of field days recently, twisting and forging news-angles to an otherwise straitjacketed announcement about a company seeking more time to repay its debt.

"Dubai Meltdown" read the headline of an AP wire copy, while the article was about the country's Central Bank making available "a special additional liquidity facility linked to the [banks'] current accounts at the central bank".

AP, however, chose to have the flashy but technically incorrect headline perhaps because it wanted to stand out from the plethora of Dubai-centric negative news splashed around by other agencies.

Such editorialising was more than evident in The Sunday Telegraph's story "Emirates Group boss says Dubai business world 'in shock'".

The article quoted him as saying: "We are all a bit shocked by what's happened and the global fall-out of the past 48 hours. But Dubai will navigate itself out of this..."

The fact Clark had meant to express shock at the "global fallout" was conveniently ignored.

The world loves to read about Dubai, the poster-city of growth, and global media is sparing no effort – ethical or otherwise – to provide readers with as many stories as they can lap up, even if it distorted some facts. As they say, 'why let a few facts get in the way of a good story?'

Keep up with the latest business news from the region with the Emirates Business 24|7 daily newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, please click here.