Up until a year ago both English language newspapers were fortnightly publications that appeared a week apart in order to provide a new newspaper on the shelves each week for those that were interested. Of late the dates on the top of each paper has slipped from 2 weeks to 3 & I note that as of today the Gazette has yet to hit the shelves despite the last copy expiring 10 days ago & when it does eventually appear the date at the top of the front page will suggest that it was published on time (ie the day after the old one expired). This poses a number of questions:

1) How are residents supposed to know when new issues will actually hit the shelves?

2) How do advertisers feel about paying for 3 week adverts that don’t reach their intended audience for 10 days or so per issue?

3) Why are new copies of the old/expired newspapers topped-up @ newsagents when they’re clearly out of date?

I think you will find i's from lack of staff.

Does anyone actually buy these 'papers'?

I think you will find i's from lack of staff.

Or lack of interest. The gazette has been for sale for a while now, so the owner might have disengaged.

There is little in the way of newsworthy content in any of these, and if you can bear the execrable copy editing (if you can call it that), I believe you can read these online.

By the way, a source inside one of the publications tells me the paper is for sale, if you fancy yourself as Samui's Charles Foster Kane....

i think also the problem is the journalist aren't allowed to tell or investigate the story, i remember with the death of kevin, one of the papers had photo evidence that he was in fact murdered and had proof, but they where told to not report by the police !,