Phuket Gazette

[randomchase]

THE Phuketgazette

l like it, I buy it every week, it has more local news than the post

The Gazette is, the islands Senior newspaper [ English,] when you pick it up it feels good.

The Siangtai Times English version which can be puchased at 7.11 stores, is best for international news and sport, really spot on, but in black and white. its not readily known by the islanders

The "breaking stories" on other online news sites have already been broken by the Siangtai times, some days befor.in print. How the others missed the 250 ethnic humong, men, women. and children held in the far northeast as prisoners for well over two and half years is beyond me

I feel there is a personal war going on here .nothing to do with the main thing that

it just aint allowed to trash the place {one exists in as a favour] or sensible.

Our own countries are far worse than Thailand inc: .s...

You guys are getting too personal, and in many cases misformed Get down to the beach get real, take up knitting, if your key fingers are so itchy, please dont be so bitchy

And yes im sorry that personal friends, lost their jobs in a dispute.But when one puts ones job on the line it happens.like the toss of a coin, Random

[N47HAN]

The Point Being ............................

[LivinLOS]

The Point Being ............................

That the poster doesnt know an strat new thread button from an add reply button..

[cyberak]

The Phuket Gazette is like the bible - good bed time reading. Many editions of the Phuket Gazette are highly sought after collectors items amongst the more refined islanders. Some old editions of the Gazette have become quite valuable indeed, I doubt this can be said about many other newspapers.

[ItsPhuketTownNotCity]

The Phuket Gazette is like the bible - good bed time reading. Many editions of the Phuket Gazette are highly sought after collectors items amongst the more refined islanders. Some old editions of the Gazette have become quite valuable indeed, I doubt this can be said about many other newspapers.

I haven't bought a print edition for months and I use old back issues laying around the house as emergency toilet paper. I guess that doesn't qualify me as a refined islander

[Old Croc]

Aside from your obvious obsession with the Gazette you have an interesting nik, ItsPhuketTownNotPhuketCity.

Wikipedia tells me:

"On February 13 2004 the town was elevated to city status (thesaban nakhon)."

Which is correct?

Edited February 10, 2009 by Old Croc

[slackula]

The Phuket Gazette is like the bible - good bed time reading.

I haven't bought a print edition for months and I use old back issues laying around the house as emergency toilet paper. I guess that doesn't qualify me as a refined islander

Yeah, I do that with the bible too. The KJV editions are scratchy though

[ItsPhuketTownNotCity]

Aside from your obvious obsession with the Gazette you have an interesting nik, ItsPhuketTownNotPhuketCity.

Wikipedia tells me:

"On February 13 2004 the town was elevated to city status (thesaban nakhon)."

Which is correct?

Yes, I have a current obsession with the Gazette to the extent that I want - and will help - another local English news outlet to rise to the occasion and bury it. I have my reasons and I believe that I am on the side of justice. When I post about it, I am unemotional and I stick to facts as much as I know them and try to be very considerate about making any personal attacks; in this era of metrosexualism and wussiness, it's so easy for people not to be able to distinguish between negative criticism and personal attacks. I just don't like it when others try to put lipstick on a pig regarding the PG, and I don't like it when somebody tells me that I should bite my tongue.

About Phuket Town/City being technically a city, you are correct - but I walk around it all of the time and it just looks like a town to me - in a good way. When I see to it referred to as "Phuket City", I cringe. And even saying "Phuket Town" sounds nicer than "Phuket City". So I guess it's just my preference or nickname for Phuket City - yech, it still doesn't sound right

Cheers.

[Kimera]

I like the Phuket Gazette I get to ride my motorbike on Saturday, Surin, Tesco, Central, AND sometimes I get as far as PATONG and I really like reading the Queer News

[Ping]

Cyberak, the issue as I see it is the determination to not report news on the basis of editorial policy. So we have a self-proclaimed censor feeding us only that which he thinks we should be entitled to read. In my view, that is dishonest.

[cyberak]

Mr Ping!

What news was not reported at the Gazette? Whilst I was there as Chief Reporter there was nothing that the Gazette would not run except a small paragraph about Mr Kanasanan - The Gazette always had scoops and exclusives, sometimes censorship is necessary otherwise expensive court cases follow.

It is a newspaper - what newspaper do you know that prints everything? Seems like some of you have kiddy axes to grind! [vulgar language deleted]

The Gazette was the first paper to highlight child labor, the atrocious labor camps at West Sands, Rawai mugger bust, floating military warehouse, CCTV corruption involving the Patong mayor, the dodgy developers and their illegal billboards, IP violation busts from music to watches - - - and much more so put that in your pipe and smoke it boyo!

Name another publication that comes even close to this quality, hahahaha you are gobsmacked chummy boy, reality dawns - the Phuket Gazette - The Island's ONE and ONLY truly original English language newspaper

[LeungKen]

"It is a newspaper - what newspaper do you know that prints everything? Seems like some of you have kiddy axes to grind! Why dont you go and grind your flacid peenies together or play slapdick?"

The above quote comes from a former Chief Reporter of The Phuket Gazette.

I think we'll leave it there shall we Ping, far be it from us to comment on such fine prose.

.

Edited February 11, 2009 by LeungKen

[ItsPhuketTownNotCity]

Mr Ping!

What news was not reported at the Gazette? Whilst I was there as Chief Reporter there was nothing that the Gazette would not run except a small paragraph about Mr Kanasanan - The Gazette always had scoops and exclusives, sometimes censorship is necessary otherwise expensive court cases follow.

It is a newspaper - what newspaper do you know that prints everything? Seems like some of you have kiddy axes to grind!

The Gazette was the first paper to highlight child labor, the atrocious labor camps at West Sands, Rawai mugger bust, floating military warehouse, CCTV corruption involving the Patong mayor, the dodgy developers and their illegal billboards, IP violation busts from music to watches - - - and much more so put that in your pipe and smoke it boyo!

Name another publication that comes even close to this quality, hahahaha you are gobsmacked chummy boy, reality dawns - the Phuket Gazette - The Island's ONE and ONLY truly original English language newspaper

[cue Jethro Tull's Living in the Past]

This and the other thread is about discussing the quality of the current Gazette, which IMHO is toilet-paper worthy. It takes about 45 seconds to thumb through it at a Family Mart and figure it out.

What are you on? Or - perhaps the better question is - what are you not on?

[LivinLOS]

"It is a newspaper - what newspaper do you know that prints everything? Seems like some of you have kiddy axes to grind! Why dont you go and grind your flacid peenies together or play slapdick?"

The above quote comes from a former Chief Reporter of The Phuket Gazette.

I think we'll leave it there shall we Ping, far be it from us to comment on such fine prose.

.

If anything hes succeeding only in lowering my impression of the gazette..

I do hope he was fired.

[cyberak]

Seems like this blog has been invaded by a bunch of pseudo journos that do not believe in fair competition - if you can make a better newspaper then do it and let me know! Talk bout poor human remnants that cannot afford a copy, so cheap they have to make do with a 45 second peep, the Gazette is for those who can afford half a dollar to enjoy a good read covering the entire Nation's highlights, cheap eats, fine dining, hidden gems and much much more.

I have not seen the Gazette recently but hopefully it has not gone downhill, I know there were numerous plans to improve it.

How do you know about this new editorial policy? When I was at the Gazette it was full of crime exposes - every murder on the island was reported without fail with the dutiful Steven Fein at the News Desk - Steven is a very professional news editor and believes in socially responsible reporting

Who has made this policy and why? Has Steven left? perhaps Apirak Hongthong has cleaned up all the crime and there are no more crime stories to report

Reporting crime is a form of crime suppression in itself and without reducing crime it is difficult to maintain steady flows of good tourists, if what you are claiming is true then it would be a crying shame, the island needs dedicated journalism to ensure sustainability

[ItsPhuketTownNotCity]

The comment that started the other original thread on the PG was this comment from the Gazette itself here at this self-absorbing article entitled "Gazette Online smashes visitor records": (http://www.phuketgazette.net/dailynews/index.asp?Id=7010) "Contributing to the rising traffic on the website are... ...and an editorial policy adjustment in which crime, though not swept under the carpet, is now given a lesser weighting in the newspaper's content mix, with recreation, sports, and business assuming a greater role."

If you click on the statistics link at the bottom, you can view what I think is a very amateur page that states things like "The visitor counts below are presented NET of traffic generated by search engine bugs." Does this mean that somebody used a Thai-English dictionary to translate the Thai word for web 'crawlers' to 'bugs'? I don't understand that. Looks very shoddy to me.

Also, check the vistor / page hit numbers:

Number of Visitors: 67,182

Number of Page Views: 89,832

This is the first time that I've checked (last time was over a week ago), that the # of Visitors exceeded the # of Page Views, which - again - made no sense to me. Even with this stat, if only 1/3 of the visitors viewed more than one page then that's not exactly something to trumpet. That whole article and stats page looks fishy.

Anyway, that was the cause of the first thread's Original Post.

Cheers.

Seems like this blog has been invaded by a bunch of pseudo journos that do not believe in fair competition - if you can make a better newspaper then do it and let me know! Talk bout poor human remnants that cannot afford a copy, so cheap they have to make do with a 45 second peep, the Gazette is for those who can afford half a dollar to enjoy a good read covering the entire Nation's highlights, cheap eats, fine dining, hidden gems and much much more.

I have not seen the Gazette recently but hopefully it has not gone downhill, I know there were numerous plans to improve it.

How do you know about this new editorial policy? When I was at the Gazette it was full of crime exposes - every murder on the island was reported without fail with the dutiful Steven Fein at the News Desk - Steven is a very professional news editor and believes in socially responsible reporting

Who has made this policy and why? Has Steven left? perhaps Apirak Hongthong has cleaned up all the crime and there are no more crime stories to report

Reporting crime is a form of crime suppression in itself and without reducing crime it is difficult to maintain steady flows of good tourists, if what you are claiming is true then it would be a crying shame, the island needs dedicated journalism to ensure sustainability

[Syl]

I have been reading with interest this last week or so about Phuket Gazettes plight in defending their actions of why they should not report every crime reported on the island.

I made a comment about the editor must have been got at, and now believe that to be a true fact.

Defending a paper on passed reputations is a big joke. What makes a good newspaper is the here and now attitude of all the work force and their "ability to report" Whatever the outcome might hold.

Give the people what they want, they have a right to know what is going on in Phuket as much as anybody.

Time to wake up and smell the roses. Or you could change your name to Phukets First Advertising Newspaper.

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you springs to my mind.

Syl.

[LivinLOS]

Seems like this blog has been invaded by a bunch of pseudo journos that do not believe in fair competition - if you can make a better newspaper then do it and let me know! Talk bout poor human remnants that cannot afford a copy, so cheap they have to make do with a 45 second peep, the Gazette is for those who can afford half a dollar to enjoy a good read covering the entire Nation's highlights, cheap eats, fine dining, hidden gems and much much more.

I have not seen the Gazette recently but hopefully it has not gone downhill, I know there were numerous plans to improve it.

Well as a subscriber who gets it in my mailbox its nto a quick peep..

It HAS gone downhill, its more and more simply shilling property, shilling Richard Watsons truly awful investment advice, and a couple of pages of potted 'news' on what sports team scored what.. The inside story elements, the real reporting, has dropped off a cliff !!

How do you know about this new editorial policy? When I was at the Gazette it was full of crime exposes - every murder on the island was reported without fail with the dutiful Steven Fein at the News Desk - Steven is a very professional news editor and believes in socially responsible reporting

Who has made this policy and why? Has Steven left? perhaps Apirak Hongthong has cleaned up all the crime and there are no more crime stories to report

They publically made a statement that crime reporting would not be emphasized any more.. For someone who claims to be so well connected to them you sure dont seem very well informed.

Reporting crime is a form of crime suppression in itself and without reducing crime it is difficult to maintain steady flows of good tourists, if what you are claiming is true then it would be a crying shame, the island needs dedicated journalism to ensure sustainability

Exactly and the very reason so many residents are upset about this 'pro sales' 'pro tourism' happy happy gloss thats been applied to the new paper.

I have zero interest in a gardening page, zero interest in the precise english grammar lessens it now provides, zero interest in the bumf that now makes up 80% of the publication... Its NEWS we want, inside story, issues and answers (where it pins those in official capacity to a public statement), etc etc etc.

[randomchase]

The Point Being ............................

That the poster doesnt know an strat new thread button from an add reply button..

to you both not true Alex look at this thread. see where it runs it is a defence of reason and fact.

i sometimes think you have a laptop built in , you are never off line .are you a sage/ guru what

The word is start n47han you hit wrong buttons .??

get out and look at this weeks edition . the gazette is A news paper . read and enjoy

and no. I am not working for the gazette. I started a new thread to stop the drivel

look befor you leap, this is thaivisa, it should be as good as it can be, dont trash it

the Gazette has been, since it started requiered reading, [ Befor thaivisa ], ITS' ISSUES' and answers 'page was / is if used correctly The place to pin down info. "The point ' dear poster read the

NEW thread random

happy in cm wishing we had an issues and answers page in the Chiang Mai Mail :jerk:

[ItsPhuketTownNotCity]

look befor you leap, this is thaivisa, it should be as good as it can be, dont trash it

That's a joke, right? The Thaivisa Phuket forum? But I digress...

OK, in all fairness, I'll go buy a copy, give it a thorough read, and get back to you.

[thaiwanderer]

the Gazette has been, since it started requiered reading

Classic!

PG's fighting the cause of burmese workers etc. might have more standing if its advertising revenues (and 'features') were not so dependent on the corpses of those workers for the foundations of 'luxury' property.

It is a rag.

Edited February 12, 2009 by thaiwanderer

[cyberak]

For someone who claims to be so well connected to them you sure dont seem very well informed.

I never claimed to be well informed, I left Phuket last year and do not get the hardcopy Gazette - I get the Pattaya Mail though and it is amazing how many foreigners are spoofed, drugged, scammed, doped etc -

I found out about this content issue of PG on ThaiVisa and find it bizarre - stranger than fiction - the only thing that jumps to mind is perhaps a policy of making it more of a family newspaper than a lager louts rag, market research suggests that the cream of quality readers wanted a variety of entertainment - there was a smaller groups that wanted gore and violence but the Gazette has more of a global rather than niche focus, as the PG is the island's family newspaper what is probably needed to satisfy the whiners is for someone to set up a hardcore The Phuket Private Eye or maybe a The Phuket Village Voice - you would then have your choice of a friendly family paper or a yet to be created paper for hardcore exposes, murder, kinky katoeys and YaBa busts

The Phuket Post is even more conservative and the front covers always seem to be crumpled up which puts me off from buying it.

If the Gazette can get all this blog attention and PR then it must still be rustling some bushes

Some say there is no such thing as bad PR

[ItsPhuketTownNotCity]

For someone who claims to be so well connected to them you sure dont seem very well informed.

I never claimed to be well informed, I left Phuket last year and do not get the hardcopy Gazette - I get the Pattaya Mail though and it is amazing how many foreigners are spoofed, drugged, scammed, doped etc -

I found out about this content issue of PG on ThaiVisa and find it bizarre - stranger than fiction - the only thing that jumps to mind is perhaps a policy of making it more of a family newspaper than a lager louts rag, market research suggests that the cream of quality readers wanted a variety of entertainment - there was a smaller groups that wanted gore and violence but the Gazette has more of a global rather than niche focus, as the PG is the island's family newspaper what is probably needed to satisfy the whiners is for someone to set up a hardcore The Phuket Private Eye or maybe a The Phuket Village Voice - you would then have your choice of a friendly family paper or a yet to be created paper for hardcore exposes, murder, kinky katoeys and YaBa busts

The Phuket Post is even more conservative and the front covers always seem to be crumpled up which puts me off from buying it.

If the Gazette can get all this blog attention and PR then it must still be rustling some bushes

Some say there is no such thing as bad PR

Thanks for all of your comments and knowledge, cyberak.

I wonder what makes the Gazette exist? Meaning, the advertisement dollars. What do the advertisers think when they put in expensive ads in the Gazette? Are they thinking that a world-wide readership of the online version will make them money? Or do they think that folks will pick up the hard copy on the island and then they will reap rewards from that?

I am totally curious and am drawing on your previous experience. What do you think?

Cheers.

[cyberak]

Thanks for all of your comments and knowledge, cyberak.

I wonder what makes the Gazette exist? Meaning, the advertisement dollars. What do the advertisers think when they put in expensive ads in the Gazette? Are they thinking that a world-wide readership of the online version will make them money? Or do they think that folks will pick up the hard copy on the island and then they will reap rewards from that?

I am totally curious and am drawing on your previous experience. What do you think?

Ads are the bread and butter of most media, I have worked in publications that are not driven by ads - with no ads the overhead is low and the revenue is generated by sales, the risks are low and so are the profits (Luckily at one publication we had 1-2 pages of ads and that helped boost the profits without plastering the thing with ads. The majority of media solicit ads and this means funding a sales team and a larger admin. Some consumers are happy with ads others are not - both markets exist.

One thing that was good about the Gazette is that they do separate editorial from ads entirely so for example the Gazette Ads dept lost a potential one year contract with a prominent potential ad customer when an editor decided to put a picture of their establishment with a black dog in front of it on the front cover. The Gazette also ran several hard hitting stories exposing the real estate industry of crimes like smothering the island with illegal billboards and supporting human trafficking/labor camps/child labor, the Gazette did this even though ads are there bread and butter, the ads should come from the more responsible real estate companies. I have not seen any other media on the island take such a proactive stance and for that the Gazette gets a tip of the hat.

Regarding your second question I feel it might be more diplomatic to not answer, as with all businesses there are industry secrets and there is often method in madness.