DUNKLEY: NOT INTERESTED IN THE NATION
Yesterday's edition of The Bangkok Post (Spectrum magazine) carried a really good interview with Australian publisher Ross Dunkley, the man behind The Phnom Penh Post and The Myanmar Times, during which he flatly said he is not interested in buying The Nation in Thailand.
During the interview with Luke Hunt, Dunkley said: "Of course, blind Freddy will tell you The Nation is potentially gasping for air and is on its knees. Incompetence is finally catching up with them. Market analysts are also arriving at the same conclusion, so I wonder how long it will be before we see the group collapsing like a deck of cards. It wouldn't take much. We are not particularly interested."
He continued: "How could we be (interested) when foreign ownership is capped at 30 per cent and at the board level 25 per cent, which is strange in itself. Navigating the minefield of politics would also be quite a task. I wonder wouldn't it be better to go farther afield for investment opportunities?"
The interview looks at Dunkley's career and the rise, against the odds, of his newspapers. It's a must-read for anyone interested in newspapers and the media in this part of the world.
Add: For more comment on this topic you should check out the Thailand Jumped The Shark post here and Bangkok Pundit's post here.
1 comments:
Talk about swimming against the current. Dunkley, if you can take his confidence at face value, appears to be making silk purses out of sows' ears. More than a few western publishers could use his expertise. Then again, he is producing papers in low-cost countries. Maybe his magic formula works only for that region. All in all, have to give the guy full marks.
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