Nate Thayer

Demise of an icon takes FEER factor out of being a dictator

The Hong Kong Standard

Demise of an icon takes FEER factor out of being a dictator

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

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People with cars often end up lugging stuff around for other folk. Take, for example, my former colleague Nate Thayer, whose odder-than-usual bit of luggage was the corpse of one of history's greatest mass murderers.

Nate, a journalist, had trekked through the jungles of Cambodia to get one of the scoops of the 20th century: an interview with Pol Pot, a dictator responsible for up to 2.5 million murders.

Pol Pot died shortly afterward. (Yeah, meeting reporters REALLY ups your stress level). Nate poked him to make sure he was dead, and then was asked to help transport the body in a pickup truck.

"It felt kind of weird to be driving along with a dead historical figure," he told us back at the office.

I thought about throwing into the conversation an anecdote about a rude hitchhiker I once picked up, but I changed my mind. Sometimes you meet someone whose stories are so amazing they make normal conversational exchanges impossible. Nate was one of those guys, and there were others in the office, too.

Those memories come from the time I worked at the Far Eastern Economic Review, or FEER.

It's in the news because the American owner, Dow Jones, announced it will cease publication after this month's issue, abandoning a name that has appeared on newsstands for 63 years.

In 2002, FEER predicted that a killer microbe would appear in southern China, cross to Hong Kong, and then cause global panic. A few months later, the killer microbe SARS appeared in southern China, crossed the border to Hong Kong, and then caused global panic. The magazine took out an ad in newspapers saying, "Sometimes we wish we got it wrong."

My father was writing an article for FEER when I was conceived - he was a dedicated multi-tasker - so it was inevitable I would join the staff. But while other reporters got mega- scoops, my job was to document the small, quirky tales that defined life in Asia-Pacific, on a page called Travellers' Tales.

I'll never forget the Filipino woman who claimed to have given birth to a fish. Or the couple in Tianjin, China, who offered a fortune to any man who would marry their household ghost. Or the Australian motorist who tried to escape driving penalties by claiming that his wife was driving, despite the fact that she had been dead for four years. Or Britz, a dog picked up from a New Zealand town by a tornado, and put down so far away it took him 10 hours to walk home. Or the Japanese employee who was so ashamed of having missed a meeting that he had himself kidnapped to provide a worthy enough excuse.

However, the quality of FEER's reporting fell dramatically in 2004, possibly related to the fact that the owner sacked all the reporters. From then on, the magazine's death became inevitable.

Mass murderers hiding in the jungles are reading this and saying, "Yippee, guys. We're safe!"

Send ideas and comments via www.mrjam.org

End of an era in journalism: FEER stared at businesses and politicians when few journalists in the region could speak truth to power

End of an era in journalism

LiveMINT.com

Wall Street Journal

Wed, Sep 30 2009.

FEER stared at businesses and politicians when few journalists in the region could speak truth to power

Here, There, Everywhere | Salil Tripathi

 

There is a saying in the East—the nail that sticks out gets hammered; the bamboo shoots that grow tall are the first to get cut. Travel through the region that begins in the Arakanese jungles of Myanmar, stretching till Japan’s farthest shores, and you will meet people embodying East Asia’s unspoken rule, nodding wisely, not talking loudly.

They comply out of the implicit Faustian bargain in the region’s social contract —do as you are told; don’t ask questions; and your rice bowl will be full. But what if you prefer a burger? What if you want to eat with a fork and a knife, and not chopsticks? That’s when you become that nail sticking out; that tall bamboo shoot. Then, challenging the leader becomes a seditious act. You are defying the Confucian compact of trusting the leaders who are then expected to make wise decisions. And so the hammer comes out; the sharp, shining parang (the Malay machete) is unsheathed.

East Asians may appear docile, obediently working in assembly lines, singing company songs or toiling in emerald paddy fields. But that’s because they know what happens if they speak out: Pramoedya Ananta Toer​, who imagined and memorized a quartet of novels while in the Indonesian gulag, Buru island, where they would not let him write; the Nobel laureate dissident-turned-president of South Korea, Kim Dae Jung​, who died this year; Anwar Ibrahim​, beaten and jailed in Malaysia, but who continues to speak out; the late Joshua Jeyaretnam​, who challenged the Singapore model; Aung San Suu Kyi​, who stubbornly clings to her beliefs, shaming the Myanmarese junta; the late Corazon Aquino​, who carried her slain husband’s baton, securing democracy in the Philippines.

One chronicler recorded these events and interpreted this fascinating region for 63 years—the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER). It is poignant to use the past tense in describing the magazine—it will continue to appear till December. But then it will be part of history, no longer its witness.

FEER was born in 1946, emerging from the post-War debris. Its founder, a Viennese Jew called Eric Halpern, presciently sensed what multinationals would realize decades later—the commonalities in this heterogeneity, and the region’s energy, which would help it leapfrog over others. FEER’s reporters made the region’s wayang kulit (shadow puppetry) understandable, in the era of the Vietnam War​.

By the mid-1980s, FEER became part of the Dow Jones​ group (now part of News Corp.), which also publishes TheWall Street Journal, with which Mint has an editorial partnership. My own disclosure: I was the magazine’s regional economics correspondent, reporting out of Singapore, Hong Kong and other Asian capitals during the tumultuous Asian economic crisis. Later, from London, I continued to write for it, about South-East Asia and India.

The 1997-98 economic debacle forced one major transformation: In 2004, from being a punchy weekly, it shrank in size, publishing essays 10 times a year. But with advertising collapsing during the current global meltdown, and the attractive market segment of expatriate and English-speaking elite of Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong evaporating, FEER succumbed.

FEER is—or was—special because it stared back at Asia’s businesses and politicians at a time when few journalists in the region could speak truth to power —not because they weren’t brave, but because they knew the consequences of taking on the system and lacked publishers who’d back them. Some of FEER’s foreign correspondents were tried, jailed, expelled, harassed or followed; some were accused of lese majeste, sedition, contempt of court and defamation; its editors fined, its issues banned, its editions photocopied and distributed without advertising, denying FEER both an audience and a revenue base. And each time, FEER’s editors—Derek Davies, Philip Bowring and now Hugo Restall—personified Hemingway’s view of courage —grace under pressure: defending themselves in courts, paying fines and carrying on publishing without fear. Leaders resented the magazine because it would not bow or kowtow. An invading army might march in, but Nayan Chanda, who was later my editor, would continue to type his story till the North Vietnamese switched off power supply. Unfazed by the malarial jungle, Nate Thayer would not give up looking for Pol Pot​. With calm forbearance, Bertil Lintner​ would bring the Myanmarese story to the world. Ian Buruma would cast light on culture, revealing nuances the region’s elite often preferred leaving unsaid. FEER’s intrepid financial reporters would figure out who hid what assets where, disciplining the markets. I remember the sleepless week in Jakarta when the Suharto regime tottered: Margot Cohen talking to people on the streets, John McBeth checking on troop movements, Michael Vatikiotis chasing politicians and academics, while I was with Anastasia Fanny Lioe in Glodok and Tangerang, where Chinese-owned shops and malls were burnt and ransacked, prompting ethnic Chinese people and capital to flee.

Businesses fail, economies collapse, and nothing is forever. But an era has ended.

Salil Tripathi is a writer based in London. Your comments are welcome at salil@livemint.com

'Christ brought you to meet me'

'Christ brought you to meet me'

IOLNEWS

April 22 2009 at 11:16am

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Phnom Penh - The former Khmer Rouge prison chief told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court on Wednesday he believed Jesus Christ had guided journalists to track him down a decade ago when he was a fugitive.

Duch, a born-again Christian, apologised in March at the start of his trial, accepting blame for overseeing the extermination of 15 000 people who passed through the regime's Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21.

As he sat in the dock on Tuesday wearing a white polo shirt, he recounted how journalists Nic Dunlop and Nate Thayer interviewed him at a hotel in a western Cambodian town in 1999.

"I told Nic Dunlop, 'Christ brought you to meet me.' Nic Dunlop quoted those words and those are the words I spoke to him," Duch said.

"I said, 'Before I used to serve human beings, but now I serve God.'"

Nic Dunlop found Duch hiding in a western Cambodian town in 1999 and later wrote a biography of the former prison chief.

Duch - whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav - told the court he confessed his role in the 1975 to 1979 regime after hearing Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot state that Tuol Sleng prison never existed.

"I could not bear what Pol Pot said, so I had to show my face," Duch said.

"For S-21, I was the chairperson of that office. The crimes committed at S-21 were under my responsibility," he added.

Although Duch says he oversaw the brutal prison, he has maintained he never personally executed anyone and has only ever admitted to abusing two people.

The former mathematics teacher has also denied prosecutors' claims that he played a central role in the Khmer Rouge's iron-fisted rule.

He faces life in jail at the court, which does not have the power to impose the death penalty.

Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many believe the UN-sponsored tribunal is the last chance to find justice for victims of the regime, which killed up to two million people. - Sapa-AFP

UPI: Far Eastern Economic Review to close

UPI

Business News

Far Eastern Economic Review to close

Published: Sept. 23, 2009

HONG KONG, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Asia's respected Far Eastern Economic Review, losing readers and facing declining advertising revenue, will cease publication in December, its parent said.

FEER, founded in 1946, was always known for its hard-hitting reporting. It had been a weekly until it was changed into a monthly opinion magazine in 2004 by Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp.

Company officials said the continued loss of readers and advertising revenues made FEER's existence unsustainable, the BBC reported, adding the publication's closure will mark the end of an era for challenging journalism in Asia.

Because of FEER's independent reporting, many authoritarian governments used to black out its pages or ban it outright, the report said.

Dow Jones said it will close the magazine so it can expand online content in several languages and strengthen the Wall Street Journal in Asia, the report said.

FEER's reporting legends include Richard Hughes of Korean War fame and Nate Thayer, who found Cambodia's Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, the BBC said.

"It was a tremendously exciting place to work," Philip Bowring, who worked at FEER until 1992, told the Hong Kong Standard. "It was the place where up-and-coming journalists would go, because they were given an opportunity to prove that they were good."

David Plott, the last editor of the weekly Far Eastern Economic Review, said the publication in its heyday employed the greatest concentration of knowledge and expertise on Asia.