PHUKET: Navel-gazing, a wise editor once said, is what newspaper people do when they look at themselves instead of getting out to report what's happening in the world.
Over the years, one particular navel on Phuket has been gazed at more deeply and more often than most.
Fortunately, since Phuketwan came along less than five years ago, Phuket's English-language readers have had a choice in where to go for their news, and that choice continues to grow wider.
Rather than long for the past, most readers on Phuket and around the world would prefer to have a speedy, accurate, up-to-the minute coverage where events are finally being given a context.
Hope of improvements on Phuket to some of the long-standing issues that were once sketchily reported are now becoming more evident, and intelligent readers perceive that greater diversity in news media outlets has helped to make that happen.
Throughout the history of newspapers, those that advocated positive change and campaigned for it are the ones that readers inevitably chose over the pretentious, the pompous and the self-interested.
Today as always, the news in newspapers begins ageing the moment an edition runs off the presses. By the time it reaches many readers, it's not just old but stale and irrelevant.
New methods of delivering news - radio, televison, online, and now the telephone and the tablet - have eroded the primacy of print. Newspapers are going over the cliff.
News on paper is dying because there is nothing that the traditional medium can do that cannot be done faster and more efficiently online, with virtually instant delivery.
Fortunately, the good journalism that flourished in the best of the newspapers is likely to live on, evolving in style and delivered by new technology in a variety of ways.
Stilted ''the cat sat on the mat'' reports of the past will not be missed by journalists, or their readers.
Phuketwan's staff, as other publishers have discovered to their surprise, have never been easily enticed to switch brands for more money.
Their ethical approach keeps them relatively poor, and working to change Phuket for the better. And their navels seldom get so much as a glance.
Over the years, one particular navel on Phuket has been gazed at more deeply and more often than most.
Fortunately, since Phuketwan came along less than five years ago, Phuket's English-language readers have had a choice in where to go for their news, and that choice continues to grow wider.
Rather than long for the past, most readers on Phuket and around the world would prefer to have a speedy, accurate, up-to-the minute coverage where events are finally being given a context.
Hope of improvements on Phuket to some of the long-standing issues that were once sketchily reported are now becoming more evident, and intelligent readers perceive that greater diversity in news media outlets has helped to make that happen.
Throughout the history of newspapers, those that advocated positive change and campaigned for it are the ones that readers inevitably chose over the pretentious, the pompous and the self-interested.
Today as always, the news in newspapers begins ageing the moment an edition runs off the presses. By the time it reaches many readers, it's not just old but stale and irrelevant.
New methods of delivering news - radio, televison, online, and now the telephone and the tablet - have eroded the primacy of print. Newspapers are going over the cliff.
News on paper is dying because there is nothing that the traditional medium can do that cannot be done faster and more efficiently online, with virtually instant delivery.
Fortunately, the good journalism that flourished in the best of the newspapers is likely to live on, evolving in style and delivered by new technology in a variety of ways.
Stilted ''the cat sat on the mat'' reports of the past will not be missed by journalists, or their readers.
Phuketwan's staff, as other publishers have discovered to their surprise, have never been easily enticed to switch brands for more money.
Their ethical approach keeps them relatively poor, and working to change Phuket for the better. And their navels seldom get so much as a glance.
Nice response to a thinly veiled critical piece in another English language media outlet.
Posted by Sir Burr on July 15, 2012 12:17