English News Paper In Chiang Mai

[jayjay0]

I noticed on another thread about news paper and magazine there was only 20 comments after counting them it turns out there was only 13 responders.

Does this indicate a lack of concern about English News Papers and Magazines here in Chiang Mai?

[ChiangMaiFun]

I would love to see one - the current 'Chiang Mai Mail' is appalling and acts like a lovesick puppy dog to the establishment - Citylife is great. I would certainly buy an English 'real' NEWSpaper if one was produced - Bangkok Post is very good - but, well, err Bangkok based .

[LJW]

I think with the internet available, there is no need for an English language newspaper.

[uptheos]

I think with the internet available, there is no need for an English language newspaper.

Ditto:

Also, although TV doesn't write the news, I think a lot of news in Chiang Mai reaches here very quickly.

Edited November 2, 2010 by uptheos

[orang37]

Sawasdee Khrup, Khun UpTheos and Khun LJW,

Ditto ... Ditto.

For ourselves we find the on-line combo of the Nation, Post, and "out of the box" sites like AsianCorrespondent/BangkokPundit, NewMandala, etc. enough.

CityLife is excellent, and the CMCC weekly classified e-mail newsletter is a great souce for buy/sell/rent whatever: those for us top the cake nicely. Just never got anything from the "Chiang Mai Mail" worth reading.

best, ~o:37;

[trainman34014]

Never buy a paper because all the news I need is on the internet. Pal gave me a Bangkok Post last week and I thought it was full of rubbish I don't want to read and adverts for everything I don't want to buy. In short; do we really NEED an English paper in Chiang Mai?

[sarahsbloke]

I don't like reading propaganda, no matter from what country it originates.

I only read fiction that is advertised as fiction.

The latest John Grisham is out ......The Confession

[ianf]

There are a couple of rags in circulation: Expat News (I think) which is a diabolical amateur rag. And off course the Chiang Mai Mail which is also unbelievably bad. I was trained as a journalist, later working on the design and editing of many magazines and then owning a successful publishing company. So I speak with a little professional knowledge.

How these people have the gall to produce such outstanding rubbish G@d only knows!

City Life is a professional magazine that has improved over the last few months and well worth reading.

There is a lot of discussion as to whether the printed word has a future - there are many expat magazines and news sheets in Thailand (especially Japanese). The market is getting smaller as more peeps turn to the internet but I believe that a well edited and well-run local newspaper would be of benefit to the community. As for the two Chiang Mai rags, all they succeed in doing is wasting more of the earth's precious resources.

[jdinasia]

I think with the internet available, there is no need for an English language newspaper.

Ditto:

Also, although TV doesn't write the news, I think a lot of news in Chiang Mai reaches here very quickly.

I stick with having the BKK Post delivered, reading The Nation on TVF, and picking up the local rags when I happen to see them. (oh and reading the local Thai newspaper) -- so like others I don't feel a real need for some local community newspaper in English

[uptheos]

Years ago back in the UK, I always bought two daily's and two Sunday papers (any more than two Sunday's were too heavy). I always looked forward to reading the daily's and the Sundays were a special all morning treat, with all the extra sport and supplements.

The amount of news covered and other stories that were covered was remarkable. There's nothing here to compare and I don't expect there to be, so I'm now content with newspapers online either Thai or British.

[Greenside]

.......The market is getting smaller as more peeps turn to the internet but I believe that a well edited and well-run local newspaper would be of benefit to the community. As for the two Chiang Mai rags, all they succeed in doing is wasting more of the earth's precious resources.

Maybe a benefit to the community but almost certainly a bottomless money pit

Edited November 2, 2010 by Greenside

[jayjay0]

There are a couple of rags in circulation: Expat News (I think) which is a diabolical amateur rag. And off course the Chiang Mai Mail which is also unbelievably bad. I was trained as a journalist, later working on the design and editing of many magazines and then owning a successful publishing company. So I speak with a little professional knowledge.

How these people have the gall to produce such outstanding rubbish G@d only knows!

City Life is a professional magazine that has improved over the last few months and well worth reading.

There is a lot of discussion as to whether the printed word has a future - there are many expat magazines and news sheets in Thailand (especially Japanese). The market is getting smaller as more peeps turn to the internet but I believe that a well edited and well-run local newspaper would be of benefit to the community. As for the two Chiang Mai rags, all they succeed in doing is wasting more of the earth's precious resources.

Well I appreciate your candor.

I believe as you do that a well run paper would be a benefit for the community. The problem being the only ones willing to do put some thing out are as you say not professional. Any one with the expertise is not willing or does not have the means. Alas our loss. As for city life yes it is great if you want to find out where to go to buy some thing. I very rarely look at it and I am under whelmed by the news.

I realize a daily would be out of the question at this point of time but a weekly would be nice. At present I have about seven different sites I use on my computer and I am still clueless as to what is going on in Chiang Mai.

[nikster]

CityLife is excellent, and the CMCC weekly classified e-mail newsletter is a great souce for buy/sell/rent whatever:

Yeah.. where do I sign up for that?

English language newspaper - please no. BKK Post and Nation are quite bad enough thankyouverymuch. Citylife is great, agree with the above... but it's not a newspaper, and that's a good thing.

[uptheos]

CityLife is excellent, and the CMCC weekly classified e-mail newsletter is a great souce for buy/sell/rent whatever:

Yeah.. where do I sign up for that?

English language newspaper - please no. BKK Post and Nation are quite bad enough thankyouverymuch. Citylife is great, agree with the above... but it's not a newspaper, and that's a good thing.

Subscribe: Send an email to [email protected] (Then reply to confirmation email that will be sent back to you.)

[jayjay0]

CityLife is excellent, and the CMCC weekly classified e-mail newsletter is a great souce for buy/sell/rent whatever:

Yeah.. where do I sign up for that?

English language newspaper - please no. BKK Post and Nation are quite bad enough thankyouverymuch. Citylife is great, agree with the above... but it's not a newspaper, and that's a good thing.

Subscribe: Send an email to [email protected] (Then reply to confirmation email that will be sent back to you.)

There is absolutely no news there. just a list of places to rent, sublet, household goods, electronics, vehicles for sale or rent, jobs wanted jobs available, volunteers available volunteers needed and community announcements. Great for the compulsive shopper.

[nikster]

CityLife is excellent, and the CMCC weekly classified e-mail newsletter is a great souce for buy/sell/rent whatever:

Yeah.. where do I sign up for that?

English language newspaper - please no. BKK Post and Nation are quite bad enough thankyouverymuch. Citylife is great, agree with the above... but it's not a newspaper, and that's a good thing.

Subscribe: Send an email to [email protected] (Then reply to confirmation email that will be sent back to you.)

Thanks for that!!

[ianf]

.......The market is getting smaller as more peeps turn to the internet but I believe that a well edited and well-run local newspaper would be of benefit to the community. As for the two Chiang Mai rags, all they succeed in doing is wasting more of the earth's precious resources.

Maybe a benefit to the community but almost certainly a bottomless money pit

Agreed. I would not waste my precious resources on setting up a newspaper. Retirement is less stressful.

[nikster]

There is absolutely no news there. just a list of places to rent, sublet, household goods, electronics, vehicles for sale or rent, jobs wanted jobs available, volunteers available volunteers needed and community announcements. Great for the compulsive shopper.

Aren't there enough "news" already? There's Thailand wide newspapers (which I've stopped reading because it's mostly pointless). There's the internet with more news you can possibly read (see above for localized news). There's this forum and others. Even if I was interested in so called "news" I'd not need another newspaper...

Following the news, as it were, is 99.9% meaningless entertainment. Whether you read OK magazine or the NY Times - it doesn't make a difference.

[canuck1941]

Some one would have to write a business plan for an English language newspaper in CM that would convince an investor to gamble his money in the face of falling sales of printed publications everywhere. Who has such a fire in his or her belly to do that? And if you were the investor, how long would it take you to throw him out of your office and get to the next applicant who has some wonderful new ideas about social media, networking...whatever?

[uptheos]

CityLife is excellent, and the CMCC weekly classified e-mail newsletter is a great souce for buy/sell/rent whatever:

Yeah.. where do I sign up for that?

English language newspaper - please no. BKK Post and Nation are quite bad enough thankyouverymuch. Citylife is great, agree with the above... but it's not a newspaper, and that's a good thing.

Subscribe: Send an email to [email protected] (Then reply to confirmation email that will be sent back to you.)

There is absolutely no news there. just a list of places to rent, sublet, household goods, electronics, vehicles for sale or rent, jobs wanted jobs available, volunteers available volunteers needed and community announcements. Great for the compulsive shopper.

Erm... I don't think anyone said there was any news there - did they?

Orang37 stated that "the CMCC weekly classified e-mail newsletter is a great souce for buy/sell/rent whatever". Nikster asked how to sign up for it and the info was provided.

[junglechef]

I get the CM Mail and BKK Post delivered to my house since I'm old school (well I turned 50 two days ago) and like reading a rag in bed or the garden or taking it to breakfast at the local shop. I read all the others I can get my hands on and the internet but would love a real local paper.

[Mapguy]

I hope the situation is not problematic.

I join with those who much favor having some local news in English, but I do not think that an English language newspaper is feasible. The market is simply too small to support such an endeavor, as the CM Mail continues to show.

Perhaps the answer is a Thai publication willing to hire someone (with some journalistic sense and an appreciation of the readership) to translate and/or adapt the local news. By that, I do not mean socialite photo montages of the foreign community or silly humor and columns of medical and investment cut-and-paste advice. What might work is an essential focus on the who, what, where, when, and (possibly) why of what's happening locally in the general Chiang Mai city environs. Cifylife does do this to some extent with an emphasis on matters of particular interest to the foreign community, but it is not a local "daily."

[canuck1941]

Maybe what's needed is not a "newspaper", but a "news portal". I also am old school, love reading a paper over breakfast and such, but we live in this fantastic information age. Maybe Thaivisa should open a Chiang Mai news forum, an addition to Thailand News and World News, maybe even make it a premium service (Did I really say that?)

There's no doubt that a demand always exists for local news and who ever can figure out how to do it right ought to make a lot of money. Maybe thinking of "paper" is so last century.

[wolf5370]

Maybe what's needed is not a "newspaper", but a "news portal". I also am old school, love reading a paper over breakfast and such, but we live in this fantastic information age. Maybe Thaivisa should open a Chiang Mai news forum, an addition to Thailand News and World News, maybe even make it a premium service (Did I really say that?)

There's no doubt that a demand always exists for local news and who ever can figure out how to do it right ought to make a lot of money. Maybe thinking of "paper" is so last century.

Just a sub forum in CM Forum would do I guess. With people posting on local news like George (and others) does for National stuff. A good Mod to keep it to news only and chopping out non-news threads etc. I'll wager we hear most of what's happening here between us and are probably much more willing to put dsome stuff in print than a paper who have a license to worry about (subject to TV rules and liability laws of course!)

[CMX]

It is astonishing to me that nobody has suggested that a newspaper is actually impossible to field here, so far. Transparency, as we understand the goal in the West, is not implemented by any department or division of government, so far as I know, as a guiding principal. Moreover, the same libel laws that have mods chasing our tails would apply (and we know why they are in place as they are), except for the certainty of relatively "deep pockets," making such a publication a tasty target - or so little specific as to be akin to the national papers, described well, above.

The "freedoms" of "freedom of the press" differs by culture and the moment. Nothing I like better of a Saturday or Sunday than to sit down with a fine fat newspaper - internet presentations are not so fulsome or else far too scattered to be as satisfying as a good Western publication. But here? Who, when, where, why, and why? Anybody know what's happened to those responsible at higher levels for the accused drug lord who escaped just as soon as foreign law officers were away from his custody? An untethered press, apart from politics, might in England have threatened the nobility and merchant classes some time ago and were controlled by owners or government - why not elsewhere on the planet?

Of course, a mildly worded gossip column or sports sheet might have reportability, so to speak. But that's what we're here for, no? Meanwhile, I think that the BKKPost, in its letters and occasional editorial or "think piece" and by reading between the lines of its reporting, can confer some information, Nation too when it is in an odd mood.

Edited November 8, 2010 by CMX

[orang37]

It is astonishing to me that nobody has suggested that a newspaper is actually impossible to field here, so far. ... snip ...

Sawasdee Khrup Khun CMX,

We suppose the "glass is half-full" hypothesis for the absence of this suggestion is that everyone knows that it's impossible: that certain topics, institutions, and people, are off-limits here in print, or any other media, period, the end, do not "pass go:" proceed directly to "jail."

Also, if CityLife's on-line forum has not been a success (reasons unknown to us), what does that say about CM expats in general in terms of their wanting a CM specific forum separate from the "baggage" of a nation-wide on-line resource (no criticism of TV intended in that statement !). It may say "nothing;" it may say it's just a typical result of business competition; who knows ?

You want an alternative view from outside the country, not subject to in-country restraints, and not banned from the internet here: not hard to find, two hints already mentioned on this thread (by us). Caveat emptor.

In fact, CityLife has, in the past, taken on some controversial things here head-on (applause).

Another excellent resource not mentioned here yet, is the film blog for Chiang Mai of "Thomat" : evidently a "labor of love: " Thomat's Film Blog for CM

No advertising, nice reviews. Can't blame Thomat if sometimes the schedules listed for Airport Plaza or KSK are a little off, because often what those movie houses have listed themselves on their own websites are "off."

best, ~o:37;