Far Eastern Economic Review

The ''Far Eastern Economic Review'' (''FEER'') was an Asian business magazine published between 1946 and December 2009 in the English language. Based in Hong Kong, the news magazine published weekly until December 2004, when it converted to a monthly publication because of financial difficulties. After ''FEER'' became a monthly, most articles were contributed by non-staff specialists, including economists, business-community figures, government policymakers and social scientists.

''FEER'' covered a variety of topics including politics, business, economics, technology, and social and cultural issues throughout Asia, focusing on Southeast Asia and Greater China.

History

The ''Far Eastern Economic Review'' was started in 1946 by Eric Halpern, a Jewish immigrant from Vienna. He initially settled in Shanghai and worked for ''Finance and Commerce'', a biweekly business magazine that shut down in December 1941 after Japanese troops invaded the city.

The Kadoorie family, Jardines, and the HSBC provided seed capital for ''FEER''.

After Halpern's retirement in 1958, Dick Wilson became chief editor and publisher. He operated an office in a colonial building along the waterfront where the Mandarin Hotel is now located. During Wilson's tenure, the magazine extended its coverage from China and Hong Kong to other regions, including Japan, Australia, India, and the Philippines.

In 1964 Wilson was succeeded as editor by Derek Davies, a Welsh journalist who had served in the British Foreign Office. Between 1964 and 1989, FEER became one of Asia's most authoritative magazines, with a circulation of nearly 90,000. At its peak, FEER had nearly 100 news staff members in 15 bureaus across Asia, making it the largest editorial team of any regional weekly publication.

From 1972, the ''South China Morning Post'', an English-language Hong Kong newspaper, gained a majority ownership of the ''FEER''. In 1987, Dow Jones, a minority shareholder since 1973, took full control after it acquired 51% of ''FEER'' owned by the ''South China Morning Post''.

After serving 25 years as senior editor, Davies was succeeded by Philip Bowring. In 1992 Bowring resigned due to differences with Dow Jones's vice president Karen Elliott House over the magazine's editorial direction. Bowring criticised the quick changing of editors after the Dow Jones takeover, efforts to dumb down the magazine to make it more readable and to move away from hard-hitting, controversial coverage of corporate and financial scandals.

Decline and closure

In November 2001, Dow Jones merged the editorial operations of ''FEER'' and the ''Asian Wall Street Journal'' to cut costs. Three years later, the magazine became a monthly publication and had fired 80 employees, representing 10% of Dow Jones's staff in Asia. Articles were largely commissioned, and only a skeleton editorial staff was retained. David Plott, the magazine's editor at the time, said the cuts resulted in a loss of one of the "greatest concentrations of knowledge and expertise about the region assembled anywhere".

In September 2009, Dow Jones announced that the magazine would be shut down permanently because of declining readership and advertising revenue. ''The Economist'' said ''FEER'' relied on advertising revenue and its business model failed when Western luxury brands no longer wished to appeal to Asian elites.

Some former staff members blamed Dow Jones for the magazine's decline.

Dow Jones said the savings from the death of ''FEER'' will "catapult the company's growth in the burgeoning Asian marketplace". In response, J. Manthorpe commented, "As the FEER has been in a vegetative state since at least 2004 when it was made a monthly instead of weekly magazine and its staff was cut from 80 to five, only two of whom are journalists, it is hard to imagine the proceeds of closure catapulting anything anywhere."

“Dow Jones's marketing people didn’t know how to sell it as it competed with the ''Asian Wall Street Journal''—they ignored it and killed it by sheer neglect,” said V.G. Kulkarni, a former editor at the Review.

"The final insult to the Review, and indeed to Asia, was Dow Jones' refusal to sell the title. It has had plenty of offers—which would benefit its own shareholders," says Bowring, "There is a parallel here between Time and ''Asiaweek''. Time bought locally born ''Asiaweek'' even though it appeared to be in direct competition for readers and advertising. Not so long afterwards, Time closed ''Asiaweek'' rather than its ailing ''Time Asia''. It was corporate imperialism more than commercial sense which brought Dow Jones to buy control of the ''Review'', which was a direct competitor for niche regional advertising. It is clear that the closure of the ''Review'', as of ''Asiaweek'', represents an attack on diversity and further reduction in the variety of print media."

"The magazine lost its way because people in New York thought they understood what the readers wanted more than those who were on the ground in Asia," wrote Bowring in the ''South China Morning Post''. Bowring claims that House infused ''FEER''s editorials with the right wing and furiously pro-western sentiments of ''The Wall Street Journal''.

Under its previous editor, Derek Davies, the ''Review'' had carved a name for itself for the excellence of its economic reporting, its refusal to be cowed and its wide-ranging book reviews. When Dow Jones took over the ''Review'' it introduced pompous "editorials"; indulged in numerous revisions to the format, each more disastrous than the last; brought in large numbers of American journalists and editors at the expense of well-established writers who knew the region; moved the focus from business and politics to "innovation" and "lifestyle," neither of which was of interest to its core readership; and dramatically reduced the scope of the book review section. When Dow Jones took control of the magazine, efforts to introduce more lifestyle features sparked protests from Review loyalists—as did its decision to make it into a monthly rather than a weekly title.

"I don't think Dow Jones ever understood what our culture was and they never really put in the effort to make the magazine succeed," said John McBeth, who joined the magazine in 1979. Dow Jones turned it into a snappy, happy, trend-conscious delight for the Internet age. It was a failed effort "to lure readers who presumably don't care about thoughtful coverage of politics and economics but do want to know which wine goes with which chili pepper." The reporting staff of the ''Review'' and the ''Asian Wall Street Journal'' were merged in 2001. More significantly, at that time the ad sales staff of the two publications were also merged. Two senior correspondents said they had frequently been asked by executives at Asian corporations they covered why the magazine's advertising staff were hard to reach and would often not return phone calls. "There was no effort put in," said one. "They didn't
even try." McBeth gave an account of the closure of FEER in a chapter called 'Death of a Magazine' in his book entitled ''Reporter. Forty Years Covering Asia.''

T. J. S. George, co-founder of '' Asiaweek'', says, "In due course, Time Inc. killed ''Asiaweek'' and Dow Jones (now a Murdoch property) killed the ''Review''. Murdoch–Dow's ''Wall Street Journal'' and Time Inc.'s ''Time'' magazine now fly the American flag over Asia, unchallenged by lesser flags."TJS George
"Hail the all-American world!"
4 October 2009

Independent journalistic establishments

Besides qualified business reports, ''FEER'' was also the pioneer of independent journalistic establishments throughout Asia. Many of the articles from the first few decades were exclusive sources of information on the development of China, such as the reports on Chairman Mao Zedong, the Cultural Revolution, and the economic opening initiated by Deng Xiaoping.

Readership

''FEER'' targeted markets in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia. It reached an elite group of readers from the government, the business world and the academic sector. The magazine had a circulation of 93,055 in 2003. In September 2006, the magazine was banned in Singapore.

Reports by FEER

"China's Elite" was a yearly side-publication by the ''FEER''. Focusing on China's leading executives and their way of business, "China's Elite" was often praised as a valuable source of information on statistics, expectations, and objective analysis obtained through in-depth interviews with leading businessmen in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

The "Review 200" was a tied publication by the ''Far Eastern Economic Review'' that ranked the top 200 leading businesses across Asia on an annual basis.

Published every two years since 1989 by ''FEER'', "Managing in Asia" provided entrepreneurs with a clear description and explanation of Asia's business position. The report offered valuable information in the aspects of economic outlook, business challenges and economic issues, personal investment, technology/office automation, brand perception, ownership of products, travel habits, etc.

The "Asia Lifestyles" was published in alternating years. It conducted surveys on business executives and questioned their lifestyles, habits, and aspirations.

''FEER'' regularly published special reports focused on topics that were relevant and significant to Asia. For example, a special report on the HIV/AIDS epidemic was published in its 15 July 2004 issue.

''FEER'' regularly interviewed government officials and other important people who had an impact in the region and the business world. In the past, ''FEER'' has interviewed Colin Powell, the U.S. former secretary of state (issue date: 28 October 2004); Kofi Annan, the secretary-general of United Nations (issue date: 22 July 2004); Chen Shui-bian, the Taiwanese president (issue date: 24 July 2003); Bill Gates, chairman and co-founder of Microsoft (issue date: 14 March 2002); and many more influential people.

In 2002 and 2003 ''FEER'' was awarded the "Excellence in Specialized Reporting" by the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA). In 2004 it was awarded the "Honourable Mention for Magazine Front Cover Design" by SOPA.
In 2005 it was awarded the "Excellence in Magazines" and "Honorable Mention for Reporting on the Environment" by the SOPA.

Censorship by governments

In late 1970s, Ho Kwon Ping, the ''Reviews Singapore correspondent, was accused of endangering national security, jailed under the Internal Security Act, did a televised confession, and was fined $3,000. Lee Kuan Yew later charged ''FEER'' editor, Derek Davies, of participating in "a diabolical international Communist plot" to poison relations between Singapore and neighboring Malaysia.

In 1987 Lee restricted sale of the ''Review'' in Singapore after it published an article about the detention of Roman Catholic church workers, reducing circulation of the magazine from 9,000 to 500 copies, on the grounds that it was "interfering in the domestic politics of Singapore."
The 4 April 2002 issue of ''FEER'' was banned in Bangladesh because its cover story, "Bangladesh: Cocoon of Terror," described the country as besieged by "Islamic fundamentalism, religious intolerance, militant Muslim groups with links to international terrorist groups."

In China the ''Reviews correspondent, Serge Ivanovitch Kost, was arrested during the Cultural Revolution and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. He later emigrated to Australia.

In 2006, after the publication of an article of an interview with Chee Soon Juan, party leader of the Singapore Democratic Party, on Singapore's prime minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father and minister mentor, Lee Kuan Yew, Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Loong both sued the publication for defamation, alleging the magazine had suggested they were corrupt. The Singapore government banned the sale and distribution of the journal. In 2007, during the International Bar Association's Rule of Law symposium, then-deputy prime minister S. Jayakumar states that FEER did not satisfy regulations for foreign publications in Singapore such as appointing a representative to accept service of any notice or legal process, and submitting a security deposit. The lack of compliance to the regulations led to FEER not being able to circulate its publication in Singapore and was not due to the legal suit.

On 24 September 2008, the High Court of Singapore, in a summary judgment by Justice Woo Bih Li, ruled that the ''Far Eastern Economic Review'' and Hugo Restall, its editor, defamed Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in its October 2006 article "Singapore's 'Martyr', Chee Soon Juan". FEER appealed but lost the case when the Court of Appeal ruled in October 2009 that the ''Far Eastern Economic Review'' did defame the country's founder Lee Kuan Yew and his son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Awards presented by FEER

The Young Inventors Awards (YIA), which began in 2000, was organized by ''FEER'' in association with Hewlett-Packard (HP). The purpose of the Awards program was to foster a spirit of scientific invention and innovation among students in the Asia–Pacific regions, including China, Philippines, Singapore, India, and Australia. Students who won the award were socially recognized and financially supported for their outstanding efforts and projects. ''FEER''s annual Asian Innovation Awards was associated with Global Entrepolise @ Singapore, which honored Asia's emerging technopreneur.

See also

*Newspapers in Hong Kong
* Media of Hong Kong

References

External links

*
Telling Asia's Story By L. Gordon CrovitzDow Jones & CompanySociety of Publishers in Asia (SOPA)

{{Authority control

Magazines established in 1946
Magazines disestablished in 2009
Business magazines
CNBC Asia original programming
Defunct magazines published in Hong Kong
Dow Jones & Company
English-language magazines
News magazines published in Asia
Weekly magazines published in Hong Kong