Heydays with Hayes

Jul 7, 2012
Bomborra

ASIAWATCH – Twenty years ago Michael Hayes arrived in Cambodia with his life savings of about US$50,000 and his then-wife Kathleen just as the United Nations began pouring into the Southeast Asian nation to oversee elections and hopefully end decades of war.

Luke Hunt writes for the Phnom Penh Post.

Armed with a royal seal from King Norodom Sihanouk Hayes founded the Phnom Penh Post from scratch, and for the next 16 years was responsible for a newspaper that enjoyed a reputation for telling the truth while maintaining a sympathetic ear for this country’s plight and its tragic history.

But this reputation came at a price. Several Khmer contemporaries were assassinated and there were many sleepless nights from the top floor of his home and office in Street 264. Hayes literally slept one floor above the news room that produced every issue, once every two weeks.

By the time I returned to Cambodia as bureau chief for Agence-France-Presse (AFP) in mid-2001, his marriage had collapsed and financial insecurity was a constant. The wars were over and efforts to put the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge on trial were dominating headlines.

The view from Cambodia [PREAH VIHEAR TEMPLE]

Phnom Penh Post, February 17, 2011
By Michael Hayes
COMMENT

When I was publisher and editor-in-chief of the Phnom Penh Post I was sued once by then-Second Prime Minister Hun Sen, accused of spreading disinformation and trying to create political instability. Over the years, several Cambodian government officials even accused me and my newspaper of attempting to “destroy the nation”.

At the very least I’ve never been called a spin doctor for the Cambodian government. But on the issue of the current border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand surrounding Wat Preah Vihear I’m as angry as all Cambodians are at what we perceive as a Thai-initiated conflict of grossly unjust proportions.

We are not alone. Since this issue flared up two years ago, I have not met one Asian or Western diplomat, one foreign aid worker or one expatriate businessman in Phnom Penh who disagrees. Even a few Thai friends have sheepishly expressed support for the Cambodian side on this spat.

The nagging question that perplexes us all is why Thailand is trying to export its domestic political problems and dump them on poor Cambodia? The sentiment here is that if the Red Shirts and the Yellow Shirts want to fight it out, do so somewhere in Thailand, but don’t use Cambodia as a scapegoat.

Newspapers: Riding the tiger [-The Phnom Penh Post vs. The Cambodia Daily

Monday August 4 2008
Ian MacKinnon
The Guardian (UK)

Across Asia, rising newspaper sales are bucking the trend of dipping circulations in Europe and the US. China is now the world's largest newspaper market with 107m copies sold every day, while India shifts 99m. Investors are jumping on the bandwagon by acquiring titles or launching new ones.

Mint, for example, is an Indian business daily launched by the Hindustan Times group and the Wall Street Journal. It now has a daily circulation of 120,000 and is on course to break even. Editor Raju Narisetti, formerly of the Wall Street Journal, is optimistic the conditions are ripe to keep the newspaper market buoyant across Asia, and in particular India, for at least another decade, in stark contrast to the gloom besetting "dead tree" media further afield.

"Internet penetration is very, very low in India," says Narisetti. "It will change, but it's not happening yet. As a result it will be 10 to 15 years before some of the problems of newspapers in the west are dealing with come to India." The Indian market's growth has led to a feeding frenzy for media companies that could end with blood on the carpet. "There's a 'gold rush' of sorts," says Narisetti. "Some will flame out in disaster and some will be successful."

Indonesia's market is nowhere near as crowded. But it has some of the same economic and social pluses as India, prompting businessman James Riyandi to bankroll the Jakarta Globe, a new daily newspaper. He believes the paper can exploit the market dramatically better than the Jakarta Post, currently selling 30,000 to 35,000 copies per day.

In Cambodia, where a racing economy hit 9.6% growth last year, Australian investors have bought out Michael Hayes, founder of the English-language Phnom Penh Post, who remains editor in chief. The Post, which will compete against the non-profit Cambodia Daily and the recently launched Mekong Times, has a circulation of just 3,000 as a fortnightly, though it's hoped going daily will boost that tally.

But even in this backwater, reassuringly, some things still hold true: newspaper barons and their egos. The latest salvo in the long-running feud between Hayes and the Cambodia Daily's founder, fellow American Bernie Krishner, 76, came when Krishner discovered the Post was attempting to poach journalists, and warned staff by email that "jumping ship" would be "treason". "The Phnom Penh Post is the enemy," he wrote. "Michael Hayes, its founder and publisher, declared war on me from the inception of the Cambodia Daily and has never stopped trying to harm us and me."

PPP Publisher Michael Hayes' notice

Notice to readers from the Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Phnom Penh Post, Issue 17 / 01, January 11 - 23, 2008

For a number of years now-too many in fact-I have been looking for investors who could inject some capital in the Phnom Penh Post to help the newspaper become more competitive, expand staffing, upgrade equipment and keep me from having any more sleepless nights worrying about making monthly payroll or finding a computer repairman on a frantic Thursday deadline.

The larger goal has always been to increase the Post's ability to provide news and analysis on events in Cambodia.

In this regard, readers will be interested to learn that I have come to an agreement with a group of investors to do just that.

The three individuals who have agreed to jointly take a majority stake in the Post are: Ross Dunkley, currently chief executive officer of Myanmar Consolidated Media (MCM); Bill Clough, an Australian miner and oil and gas entrepreneur; and, Michel Dauguet, a French businessman with more than a decade's worth of experience involved in media and technology companies in Vietnam and Thailand.

For the immediate future I will remain as editor-in-chief of the Post and have been assured that editorial control of the paper will remain in my hands. In this regard, let me state for the record that I am fully committed to make every effort to retain the standards of journalism excellence that the Post has tried to maintain since its inception back in July, 1992.

For anybody with even the remotest understanding of the near manic process that surrounds the collection of information and subsequent production of a newspaper on a shoe-string budget (which includes managing the attendant cast of unique characters who participate directly in this process), it is all too painfully clear that there are regular hiccups along the road. But the overall intent has been, is and will remain clear: to produce one of the best, most readable and most reliable newspapers in the world. This is the goal and will remain so for as long as I continue to be responsible for the newspaper's content.

When we hit the mark, readers have been generous in their praise; when we miss it, the barbs usually fly rather quickly from numerous quarters. Either way, this is to be encouraged and I hope that those who rely on the Post will continue to share their thoughts with us on the quality of what we publish. Your input is welcomed and most readers know exactly how to find us.

Otherwise, let me extend my sincerest best wishes to all Post readers, advertisers, overseas subscribers, contributors and friends for the coming year. Your on-going support and constructive criticism over the past 16 years has made the continued existence of this paper a reality. And please rest assured that all of us here at the Post are extremely grateful for that.

Michael Hayes
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief

Australians buy Cambodian newspaper

January 08, 2008
Mark Dodd
The Australian

TWO Australian businessmen with media interests in Burma have purchased a controlling interest in Cambodia's Phnom Penh Post.

The Post's new owners are Ross Dunkley, whose company Myanmar Consolidated Media publishes the Burmese government mouthpiece Myanmar Times, Burma's first private newspaper, and mining entrepreneur Bill Clough. They have promised The Post will remain independent and will soon publish weekly.

The current proprietor and editor-in-chief, American Michael Hayes, launched the newspaper on a whim in 1992 in a Phnom Penh bar. He will stay on as editor-in-chief for another 18 months.

The newspaper's launch was timed to coincide with the arrival of the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), heralding a new era for Cambodia as it emerged from more than three decades of war, including the Khmer Rouge “killing fields” reign of terror in which more than 2 million perished.

The Phnom Penh Post - well-known and highly regarded throughout Southeast Asia, although not always well-liked by the Cambodian Government - enjoys a reputation for being fiercely independent.

It was among the world's first media outlets to proclaim the death and cremation of notorious Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot with the headline “Burnt like Old Rubbish”.

The newspaper has helped serve as a career springboard for a generation of journalists interested in reporting from Southeast Asia, in particular Cambodia, including Nate Thayer - who achieved fame with an exclusive 1997 interview with Pol Pot after he was arrested as a result of an internal Khmer Rouge purge.