While Vancouver police fight a gang problem that has raged for most of this year, the city is also fending off bad press from around the world about its "blood-spattered streets."

The city's most recent source of bad PR is The Economist, which half-jokingly compares British Columbia to Colombia in a headline in its most recent issue.

The ensuing story details how the violence on Vancouver streets can be directly linked to a recent crackdown on Mexican and U.S. gangs, who supply cocaine to the province's 100-plus gangs.

And according to The Economist, the related violence that has been seen throughout 2009 demonstrates "the feckless response of the provincial government and police, despite reports dating back more than 30 years giving warning of the growth in organized crime."

And those aren't the only knocks that Vancouver is taking in the worldwide press these days.

The Associated Press has referred to the "spasm of gang violence" that has hit city streets and Britain's Independent newspaper described Vancouver's "blood-spattered streets littered with shell casings and corpses."

Paul Valley, executive vice-president of Tourism Vancouver, said the bad news in the press isn't good for business, but things aren't as bad as the media is making them seem.

"As a tourism organization we cannot play the game of trying to deny the bad news," he told The Canadian Press, when reacting to the Economist article.

Valley said that while some of the nearly 50 attacks in Metro Vancouver this year -- including more than 20 people who have been shot to death -- have taken place in public areas, the vast majority have been targeted.

"It's certainly a concern to us, but we have to measure our response and not to overreact."

Vancouver officials have also been sticking up for the city's battered reputation.

Police Chief Jim Chu has said that critics should "look in their own back yard" before judging the problems in Vancouver.

And newly-acclaimed B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell has also decried the "cheap shots" taken by the press against his province's largest city.

But the gang-related problems Vancouver is facing aren't going away.

On Thursday, a 29-year-old Maple Ridge man who drove himself to a hospital, was one of the latest B.C. residents to die from gun-related violence this year.

Police say the man who was shot in a residential neighbourhood was known to police and his death appears to be targeted.

With files from The Canadian Press