Every day we personally trawl around a dozen websites and post details of vacancies deemed suitable for native English media professionals in Thailand. If you have a vacancy and want it filled, email your details to bkkandy AT myway.com.
Latest vacancies:
pricewaterhousecoopers is looking for an English editor for its Bangkok office.
DDProperty.com urgently needs a writer/editor with fluent written and spoken Thai and English skills.
AA Talent is seeking a native English Corporate Writer/Editor for one of its clients - an international PR and sponsorship agency.
Are you a journalist or writer looking for work in Thailand and South East Asia? Why not post your details and let publishers come to you? See HERE for more details.
Thailand is set to get a new business magazine when Bangkok Business Brief is launched in October.
Siam Gazette, publishers of the existing Bangkok Trader title, have revealed the new free title will be a ".. comprehensive aggregated business summary of news relevant to Bangkok and its business people and foreign community."
The print edition will have a circulation of 10,000 copies, according to the publisher, and will be distributed to a database of the Thai capitals business community in addition to selected high profile public locations.
Asia Books, Thailand's leading English language bookshop chain, has been purchased by Berli Jucker Public Company Limited (BJC) for 1.19 billion baht (US$39.8 million).
The company, which was established in 1969, has more than 70 outlets in Thailand under the Asia Books and Bookazine brands. It also acts as a distributor for local and international magazine and book publishers. It was previously owned by an equity fund and private investment company.
BJC is controlled by liquor tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi who was ranked as Thailand's third richest person by Forbes magazine last year.
The July issue of The Big Chilli magazine, which appeared on the shelves last weekend, contains a feature which looks at non Thai language publishing in Thailand.
I concur with the headline that "print's not dead", but the "research" which yielded lists of publications contains a number of errors. There are at least half a dozen English magazines listed in this feature which have ceased publishing. These include Acclimate, Apartment Living, Director and Tropical Living. A number of well-established titles are also missing.
The feature says there are more than 200 foreign language newspapers, magazines and other periodicals published legally in Thailand, and that the number is on the rise. Understandably, English is a niche language in terms of publishing in Thailand and looking solely at English titles (Big Chilli's "research" discovered 96) the number has declined in the last 12 months. Overall though, and including Thai titles, the number of publications is most certainly continuing to rise and showing no signs of stopping.
Advertising spend in all media in Thailand rose 11 per cent during the first six months of 2011, according to research from Nielsen. The increase has been largely attributed to increased spending by political parties in the run up to the general election.
Television still dominates advertising channels in Thailand, accounting for a massive 61 per cent. Newspapers (13.5 per cent) are a clear second, followed by cinema (6.3 per cent), radio (5.4 per cent) and magazines (5.1 per cent).
The research noted the two mediums with the best performing year-on-year increases were in-store, up more than 50 per cent, and Internet which recorded an unsurprising 69.4 per cent rise.
What is perhaps most surprising is the fact that Internet advertising, according to this research, only accounted for 227 million baht's worth of advertising during the first half of the year. It represented just 0.42 per cent of all advertising spend in Thailand during this period.
One question I am commonly asked is about the salary expectations for media professionals and journalists in Thailand. The answer I give always include a comparison of how much Thai journalists are paid.
I keep a regular watch on the advertised salaries for journalists, editors, designers and sales executives. It comes as a shock to some when I say that it's pretty common to see journalist positions for Thai nationals - with the requirement of one or two years experience along with a Bachelor's degree - offering just 9,000 baht - or roughly US$300 per month. Often these positions also include the requirement to have good English writing skills.
A friend of mine works as a news anchor and reporter for a Thailand-based English television channel and is paid 15,000 baht (US$500) per month - and works damn hard for that. It's fair to say that Thai journalists with good English skills are generally paid more, but even the editor of a leading Thai language magazine may only be commanding 30,000 baht per month (US$1,000). A similar position in the U.K with like-for-like duties and responsibility would be paying five times that amount.
Of course there are exceptions. A few years back I learned of one Thai editor who was paid 180,000 baht per month (US$8,000) to edit a free magazine, and I also interviewed a journalist who was, at the time, working for one of the two English dailies and commanding a salary of 60,000 baht (US$2,000) per month.
I think it's fair to say that like pretty much everywhere in the world, journalism is not an especially lucrative career unless you make it to the very top.
As someone faced with surveys of one kind or another on a daily basis, it's safe to say you can read pretty much anything you want into lines of data and statistics. But one report published earlier this month by the Economist Intelligence Unit is easy to understand; Bangkok is not as cheap as it once was.
The capital of Thailand in this Worldwide Cost of Living report is now ranked 66th globally and is on a par with the U.S. cities of Miami and San Francisco. Bangkok gained a score of 89 which assumes New York has a score of 100. Last year Bangkok scored 86. Ten years ago the city scored 55 - meaning costs were almost half the price of New York. Now, Bangkok is little more than 10 per cent cheaper.
The world's most expensive city in this report was Tokyo which scored 161. Bottom of the table of recorded cities was Karachi in Pakistan with 46. Just five years ago Bangkok was ranked in 100th place in this same bi-annual survey, which looked at more than 400 individual prices across 160 products and services in 140 cities in 93 countries.
My opinion is that Bangkok can be a cheap as you want it to be. Sure, you can spend a lot of money maintaining an expatriate lifestyle, but at the same time it's easy to live comfortably on 20,000 baht per month or less. Most Thais do exactly that.
And, in contrast to this particular report, Bangkok was recently voted as 'World's Best Value City' by readers of the Sunday Times Travel magazine.
For such a short life, this June edition of Derbyshire Life magazine has travelled many, many miles.
I picked up this copy of the U.K. magazine, produced by Archant Life in Derby, at Bangkok's Chatuchak Weekend Market last weekend. And it got there via Nadi - the third largest city in Fiji. How do I know? The magazine had a receipt buried deep inside for food (Chicken Ashika, Wok Friend Chicken and Banana Fritters) from Raffles Gateway Hotel in Nadi.
The previous owner of this magazine, Mr. C. Francis, kindly left the slip with his room number and signature on the food receipt inside his copy of Derbyshire Life, probably never imagining it would be sold on and written about.
An official announcement about the launch of a Thailand edition of the BBC's Lonely Planet magazine is imminent, industry sources have confirmed to me.
The Thai langauge licensed edition of the the global magazine brand will be published locally by Media Expertise International, a division of Nation Multimedia Group. Media Expertise is the publisher of a number of licensed Thai language magazines including Wallpaper, Living Etc and Top Gear. The company has already started to include the Lonely Planet brand in its marketing materials.
Lonely Planet magazine began life in the United Kingdom in 2009 as a spin-off from the popular travel guides. Local editions of the magazine have already appeared in India and Argentina, as well as a regional English language edition produced from Singapore.
The travel category is one which I previously identified as an opportunity for a local language licensed edition. Lonely Planet's will be the first overseas travel title to enter the local market which is, in my opinion, far from being saturated. Few existing titles rely on quality global and regional content from respected travel writers, and that's why I expect this title to do well in Thailand.
The current controversy surrounding journalists at News International looks like spreading to The Sunday Times and The Sun. There's now a real danger that honest and law-abiding media professionals will be tarred with the same brush and treated as criminals.
But that's happened before. I was working as chief photographer for a local newspaper in the U.K. on the morning after the death of Princess Diana. It was a Sunday and the diary of events was busy, but one event - a teddy bears picnic at a country park - was missing a confirmed time so I called the event organiser. Even at that stage - just hours after the fatal crash in Paris - the media and photographers more specifically - were being blamed for her death.
"Actually, we've changed our mind. We don't think it will be appropriate to have a press photographer at our event," was the response. The event went ahead, as I recall, but without press coverage.
A sad but true fact was that local newspaper press photographers - arguably the trusted eyes and ears of a local community - were viewed in the same light as paparazzi snappers who spend their days hounding celebrities. My fear now is that decent journalists will be treated in the same way as those who have been accused of serious misdemeanours at News International.
The good and the great of Asia's publishing industry were rewarded at the fifth annual Asian Publishing Awards which took place in Bangkok last Friday. Ten winners and 16 excellence awards were handed out following the final day of the Asian Publishing Convention, an event which attracted close to 250 delegates from 17 countries.
The award winners were as follows:
The Thai Journalists Association, as reported by the Bangkok Post, has launched an investigation into claims that two reporters took money in exchange for publishing photographs of Yinkluck Shinawatra. (Would reporters really have the power to influence photo coverage?)
This reminds me of my personal experience several years ago where I was quoted a "price" for some PR news being mentioned in print by one of Thailand's leading columnists.
My understanding is that this is fairly common in Thailand, although I've never paid or been paid for any coverage. Journalists attending press conferences here are routinely fed and watered, and sometimes get a thumb-drive or notebook as a 'gift' from the hosting company. That's no different to anywhere else I've worked.
In a minor detour from my magazine-focused stories, I want to give a hearty recommendation for a book I finally got around to buying yesterday.
Bangkok's Top 50 Street Food Stalls does exactly what it says on the cover, providing a list a the best street food in the Thai capital. And from someone who could be the perfect author of 'Bangkok's Best Fast Food Experiences' based on my personal culinary habits, I have to say the descriptions and review of what's on offer in various nooks and crannies in the city is sumptuously salivating. It has to be in one of the top five 'must read' books for Bangkok residents and anyone planning to spend more than a few hours in Bangkok.
The book was launched a few months ago and is readily available at the modest price of 390 baht from Asia Books and other English language bookshops in Thailand. It's also available on Amazon.com.
Rupert Murdoch certainly has guts. It takes a lot to kill a best-selling publication with more than 160 years of history.
I am not condoning what is alleged to have happened at the News of the World, however one thing that's been missing from the reports so far is the fact that this was a successful publication because of the stories it published. Yes, there is now debate about how some of those stories were obtained, but the fact is the public was lapping them up.
I've certainly had first-hand experiences of one aspect of this story. When I started my career on newspapers in the early 1990s tip-off payments for stories were not unusual. Whether it was in the form of cash or a few drinks at a local pub, 'payment' for information happened, and one of my former colleagues was, shall I say, pretty close to members of the police.
My view is the News of the World saga has a long way to run. The backlash will likely spread to its sister paper The Sun, and I also feel there is potential for further anger directed towards Murdoch for his decision to cull such a historic publication and not take action against the accused individuals.
Magazine and newspaper publishers from around the world are arriving in Bangkok for the 5th annual Asian Publishing Convention, which takes place in the Thai capital on Thursday and Friday this week. And it's a case of 'third time lucky' as the two previous attempts to stage this event in Thailand in 2009 and 2010 were cancelled as a result of political instability.
Organisers claim that more than 350 global publishing professional will be attended the event at the Landmark Hotel, which starts tomorrow evening with a 'power dinner'.
The list of planned speakers looks formidable, with experts from around the world coming to Bangkok to share their knowledge of the latest trends and innovations in world publishing.
The event also features the Asian Publishing Awards, which are set to be announced on Friday evening. Two weeks ago the organisers revealed a shortlist of 26 finalists for the competition.
The Convention is hosted the The Magazine Association of Thailand.
A significant amount of front page column inches were devoted to coverage of Yingluck Shinawatra's general election win. Newspapers around the world - from The New York Times (pictured right) to leading newspapers in South Korea and even Sudan - chose to feature the news on the front page of their Monday editions. Newspapers in Austria, Pakistan and Sweden were also some who chose to give front page coverage to news from Thailand.
News and pictures also featured on front pages of regional U.S. newspapers, including the Arkansas Democrat Gazette and The Washington Times.
I'm personally a little surprised at the amount of front page global coverage this news has generated, especially on Independence Day in the United States and on the day after the Wimbledon men's final. Both of those stories featured more prominently on global front pages yesterday.
News from yesterday's general election in Thailand is dominating the front pages of regional newspapers across South East Asia.
Singapore's Straits Times (pictured right) carries an image of Yingluck Shinawatra, while other Singapore newspapers including Business Times also carry the news as a lead story.
Wall Street Journal Asia also carries Puea That's win as its front page lead, while Malaysia's The Sun also leads with the story and includes two analysis pages inside. The news also appears as a front page story on the International Herald Tribune - although not the lead story.
I'll be monitoring any front page coverage from the Middle East, Europe and America later in the day.
In Thailand the Bangkok Post leads with the headline 'History in the making' while The Nation opts for 'It's Yingluck-y'.
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.. about the media and publishing industry in Thailand, and I will do my best to assist you. You can email your question to bkkandy AT myway.com.
