The original Dhivehi article was published on Vaguthu.mv website on 16th March 2017.
The following is a loose translation:
This is confirmed after finding out who Al Jazeera’s reporter Will Jordan, the maker of Stealing Paradise documentary, really is. On how information was gathered to make the documentary, and when the video’s witnesses’ real character was found out, many are now seriously questioning the credibility of Al Jazeera’s Will Jordan’s Stealing Paradise documentary. For many valid reasons. Since then, there have been more ‘stealings’.
Will Jordan was President Mohamed Nasheed’s public image restorer. The leading Maldivian news reporter who worked along with Will Jordan to make the documentary also worked with him in government during President Nasheed’s tenure. After the release of the documentary, that Maldivian was transferred to Al Jazeera as a Maldives news correspondent. The informants in Will Jordan’s documentary were former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb’s friends, the supporters and participants of all the illicit affairs of Adeeb’s. The people who transported the money as claimed by the Stealing Paradise documentary. The people who did the money laundering and looked after it. The people who are still making use of that money to live off abroad.
What Will Jordan has said mostly about Maldives in his documentary are points that Maldivian media has already discussed plain and openly. What was obvious. Will Jordan’s purpose was to publicise them to the whole world. Many know why he did that. This became more evident from his Twitter feeds.
When looking at his Twitter feeds, what appears is rather than acting as a professional journalist, he is more an anti-President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom and his government’s activist. Based on his tweets what you see is how hard he is trying to prove the allegations made in his documentary. The satisfaction he gained from making it is lesser compared to the distress he is facing by the continued defense stance he is taking. After the release of his documentary, he kept on promptly retweeting the oppositions tweets criticizing President Yameen’s government. Especially upon learning about current government’s corruption news, he tweets them at once. Moreover, he jumps on the moment and quickly tweets upon coming across any information from anywhere that reinforces the allegations made in his documentary. These are all reasons why doubts are raised about Will Jordan and his purpose on releasing the documentary.
The most recent attempt to defend his Stealing Paradise documentary was live tweeting parts of speech of President Yameen during PPM party rally, as it happened. Spun the speech of President Yameen regarding Will Jordan’s Stealing Paradise documentary, as per his likings. Next, after President Yameen’s speech ended, Al Jazeera’s anti-Yameen team reported the news after twisting it according to how they interpreted it and Will Jordan, along with his Maldivian colleague at Al Jazeera earned the title of first persons to tweet it. The Maldivian journalist at Al Jazeera also revealed that it was the journalist’s latest work done on Maldives and popped up the collar with pride.
Al Jazeera publishing a twisted version of what President Yameen said to clear out about what was reported in President Nasheed’s public image manager – Will Jordan’s documentary, in the way the opposition wanted, is poor and cannot be measured as professional journalism. It cannot be considered as a marvelous achievement by a professional journalist in an international media.
When President Yameen spoke in response to the allegations made against him in the Stealing Paradise documentary, using extracts from the documentary, word to word, as claimed in the documentary and when queries were raised as to why there is no mentioning of other communications of Adeeb’s money spending, Will Jordan conveniently taking what he wanted out of context and in compliance with the opposition’s response, misinterpreting and spreading that false news, is by all means, when measured by professional journalism standards, a very low-grade act, even though, done by a Maldivian, or by an Al Jazeera journalist.
