Far Eastern Economic Review - Issue #2

I received the 2nd issue of the new Far Eastern Economic Review today. I will keep receiving it until the value of the old FEER subscription is used up.

In this issue, there were two letter praising the new FEER. There were no letters published critical of the new FEER. I don't know what to make of this - seems to be a rather unbalanced view of the new FEER. I suspect the new management decided not to publish the negative letters. In contrast, the old FEER did publish letters critical of the magazine contents. But I will give the new management, the benefit of the doubt, maybe they did not have sufficient space to publish these letters.

There are the usual articles of which half were written by ademics (professor xx and so) and some from think tanks. There are some analysis made on various economic and political issues. However the analysis were run of the mill type and contains nothing which could have otherwise be obtained from other sources like The Asian Wall Street Journal or the Economist.

If I can compare it with food ; it is like eating tomyam (spicy soup) without the fiery taste of chillies and lemongrass. In other word, the articles and analysis were somewhat insightful but bland and if I may say boring.

There are no controversial issues which can annoy goverments or make politicians squirm. I remember in the old FEER, reading about Thailand's drug campaign (2,500 alleged drug pushers killed in 2004) and the human rights and NGOs who critised Thaksin, Thailand's currrent premier.

Interestingly enough on the 2nd page, there is a list of employees for the new FEER. There are 9 employees, all with titles xxx director. Here xxx is the various job functions e.g. Managing, Finance etc. I guess that is why the FEER has so many academics contributors. What is really missing is the on the ground journalist (locally based) who has his ears and nose on happenings. The ones who can pick up potential stories from coffee shops and local people.

The 2nd issue also offered a subscription service : USD 100 per year (10 issues). Looking at the present state of the new FEER offering bland analysis and clearly steering away from potentially controversial issues. It now panders to the conservative set and appears to be inclined towards preservation of the status quo in society.

I will not be taking up the subscription offer. For the record, I was a FER subcriber for 16 years.

For other articles about the demise of the FEER, see the followig websites: Site 1 , Site 2 and Site 3.