THE ECONOMIST: SUBSCRIBER COPIES ARRIVE BUT SHOPS DECLINE TO SELL
EXCLUSIVE: By The Bangkok Bugle
This week's edition of The Economist magazine will not be sold in shops in Thailand, although subscribers have already started receiving their copies as normal via messneger and post.
A senior manager at one of Thailand's leading English language bookshops confirmed to me they had declined to sell this week's edition for "sensitive" content, however the company responsible for distributing copies to subscribers has different ideas and has gone ahead with distribution.
This is the sixth edition of the magazine that has faced some kind of distribution problems during 2009. Editions of September 18, July 4, April 18, January 31 and January 24 did not make it to either subscribers or shops. None faced any kind of official ban.
The Economist claims to have a distribution of just over 6,000 copies in Thailand. Between one quarter and a third of this number are subscribers.
4 comments:
Very interesting. I wondered why you hadn't posted this at the weekend - I guess it wasn't clear that shops weren't selling it because you had received your subscriber copy.
I was told on Saturday that "the distributor" had decided not to send it to Thailand this week (i.e. similar situation to the previous cases), but that information only came from a shop assistant.
There's no potential lese majeste in this week's issue (IMHO), just a politically sensitive interview with Thaksin. Withdrawing the magazine for potentially illegal content is one thing, but doing so for political reasons is more worrying.
BTW, the Thaksin interview is quite funny. He says his family doesn't have much money... just 200,000,000 GPB!
Mat.
I let my own subscription lapse in late August because it was quicker to get copies in the shops.
On Friday and Saturday I spoke to several subscribers who said they'd not heard anything from The Economist about any subscription problems, which to me indicated there wouldn't be a problem as they're usually very good at keeping their subscribers informed.
Like you I searched for copies in the shops at the weekend, however I only got confirmation this morning that the distributor had declined to deliver the newstrade copies.
There are two different companies involved - one looks after the copies for subscribers, and then you have the other company that handles the imported copies of The Economist from Singapore.
Of all the articles that have caused problems I think this is the weakest, but I think the line that might have caused problems relates to royal support for the yellow shirts. That's just my opinion.
But if the distributor has only taken this decision for political reasons then I think The Economist would have a good case to sue them for loss of income from the non-appearence of this week's edition.
If on the basis of this interview alone, the Economist should not be prevented from being distributed.
If on the basis of this interview alone, Thaksin gives clues as to why he is of no fit mind to run the country. His comments are extremely confused.
I also felt the interview didn't really challenge him on any of his 'points', especially the 'deaths' at Songkran, "Our red shirts have no weapons. They grab wood from street", payments to 'supporters', free speech constraints while he was in power, nepotism, "They thought that this government really comes from election. Yes, they come from election.", the list goes on. The amazing thing is it's a PR piece and the ex-leader still doesn't come across well.
But what's with the Economist and their poor interview standards?
I felt it was not one of their better interviews too.
I also feel what this case shows is that there is no clear understanding of what is deemed acceptable, and what isn't. There are three organisations involved - the publisher, the subscription distribution company and the newstrade distributors. In the past the publishers have taken their own decision not to distribute copies, but this time that didn't happen and copies arrived in Thailand. The subscription distribution company obviously felt there wasn't an issue with the story whereas the newstrade distributors disagreed and deemed the story risky.
My view, as I suggested in my earlier comment, is there is probably just one line that may have been seen as problematic under the current LM laws. I really can't see the newstrade distributor effectively banning this issue themselves just because it was an interview with Thaksin. So many publications have carried his words at various times, mine included, and not run into any problems.
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