The top half of the first official front page of the Myanmar Times daily English edition. PHOTO/COCONUTS MEDIA
Second time’s a charm?
Local newspaper the Myanmar Times, which has Burmese and English language editions, has gone daily – almost two years after the first attempt stalled.
A bumper edition of the slick, new-look publication, featuring 32 pages of news, business, opinion and lifestyle, was on stands Monday morning. A series of pilot editions ran last week.
The front-page editorial, headlined “Our vision for peace,’ promises four weekly instalments of content that examine ‘reconciliation.’
“Daily! Daily newspaper!” one vendor on Merchant Street said early Monday morning, pointing to the paper, which costs 500 kyats, or about $0.50 cents.
It’s been a long time coming.
The Myanmar Times originally intended to launch its daily edition in May of 2013, when a glut of publications, including the now-defunct Freedom Daily, entered the market, but internal disputes scuppered the plan.
Then-editor-in-chief Ross Dunkley said in an editorial that conflicts between shareholders meant that the weekly was forced to “limp along” while others took advantage of the market.
Dunkley, the Australian media figure who co-founded the paper in 2000 with Burmese counterpart U Myat (‘Sonny’) Swe, was accused of assaulting the son-in-law of his then business partner Tin Tun Oo’s wife. You can read about that here in an “exclusive” Q&A published in…the Myanmar Times.
Dunkley also came under fire for appearing to limit coverage of the Rohingya issue in a controversial memo obtained by Foreign Policy. He told the magazine that the issue was internal and not up for “dissection.”
The months that followed, however, brought in sweeping changes, with businessman U Thein Tun, owner of Myanmar Golden Star, taking over as majority shareholder in February of 2014, according to the paper. Dunkley handed over management duties to CEO Tony Child in October.
Requests for comment from the Times were not immediately returned.
