The Nation vs. Bangkok Post
By Richard Barrow 
Sunday 13th July, 2008 | 803 words | Category: General | 21 feedbacks »
For several years now, I have been subscribing to both the Bangkok Post and The Nation. These are the main English language dailies in Thailand. They are not exactly the same and they each have their own good attributes. I couldn't really make up my mind which one to keep, so I decided to just keep both. Then in March the situation was shaken up with the launch of the free daily tabloid called Daily Xpress. This is part of the Nation Multimedia Group - an organization that I have a lot of respect for. Basically, what happened is that The Nation went from a general newspaper to a business daily. Overnight the old newspaper had died. It was a bold move. The Daily Xpress is distributed for free throughout Bangkok. It was also inserted for free into subscription copies of The Nation.
When this first happened, I wasn't too sure if I was that happy. After all, it is like paying for a year's supply of apples and then suddenly being sent oranges instead. I only have a passing interest in business news. What we had in the old newspaper was good enough for me. I didn't need to see all the press releases and attached photos from companies launching new products. I also wasn't happy, that although I had paid for The Nation to be delivered seven days a week, I was now only receiving from Monday to Saturday. The only consolation was the "free" Daily Xpress which came seven days a week.
It was a bit weak to start with as it struggled to find a direction. But, I think after a few weeks it actually became quite good. None of the content was repeated in The Nation which was great as it felt like I had two newspapers for the price of one. In addition, it covered the kind of local news that I had never seen before in the English dailies. We still didn't get the sensationalized pictures like you get in the Thai Rath, but we got a lot of crime stories that were actually sometimes quite good. Well, it was different to the norm and so therefore felt good. There was also expat news and local travel news.
About two months ago my subscription to the Bangkok Post was up for renewal. As it was now becoming difficult to read three newspapers in one day I decided to drop the Bangkok Post and keep with The Nation and the Daily Xpress. So, it looked like The Nation had won the battle of the dailes. But, not quite. Almost straight away the quality of the two newspapers started to go down hill. Regular columns and features were dropped or just didn't appear so often. People like the popular cartoonist Stephff disappeared. We started hearing rumours that staff were being dropped or were being asked for drops in pay. The Daily Xpress went from more than 48 pages to only 28 pages in last Friday's edition. Worse than that, we have started to get repeats of not only stories but also pictures that had already appeared in The Nation.
Then came the news this weekend that the Daily Xpress will no longer appear on Saturday and Sunday. This is obviously the start of the end. I am predicting now that the Daily Xpress will not see the year out. And without this free insert inside The Nation, I predict that newspaper will probably disappear in due course. Everyone is abandoning ship. Tomorrow I am going to ring the subscription office to see if I can get my money back. I am not hopeful that they will do this, but I think the law is on my side. After all, this is not the same newspaper that I subscribed to last year. I didn't subscribe to a business daily.
So, who won the English daily newspaper war? Well, from my opinion it is the Bangkok Post as I will now open a new subscription to their newspaper. I am sorry I ever dropped it. I miss the daily supplements and their long features about Thailand. No-one can do it like the Bangkok Post. And as far as The Nation is concerned, I am sorry to say it is now R.I.P.
UPDATE: Today I rang The Nation to see if I could get a refund on my subscription to their newspaper. My argument is that I didn't subscribe to a business daily but that is now what they are delivering me. Not surprisingly, their answer was a big "no". They weren't even sympathetic. I guess they are desperate for the money. So looks like I will have to put up with The Nation for the time being. Unfortunately, my subscription doesn't run out until December 2008. Will they last that long?
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21 comments
Siam Sunshine.
Personally I prefer to read the real newspaper and not read online. My company subscribes to both. But I usually only read the Bangkok post.
I also don't think The Nation will survive as a buiness daily. If they are stubborn and choose to remain with this format they will fold shortly after the Daily Xpress becomes extinct. However, if they are brave enough to count their loses, and don't worry about losing face, then they should revert to their old format and then most likely survive.
If this is a war of the dailies then my vote goes for Bangkok Post.
Thankfully we still have the "Bangkok Post" to tell us what is going on-but I miss the "reality check" that "The Nation" provided, especially for the political stories-ie-the often different viewpoint.
I hope the Daily Xpress does go, and The Nation gets back to doing what it does best: being a NEWSpaper.
The B.Post and the old Nation were equals offering news from different sector, they gave us two different perspectives. The age of fair journalism is dead in Thailand unless the B.Post has a competitor.
It has some quotes from celebs that I don't quite care or know about on the front page, it as some social gossip and news, it has some other so called 'cool stuff' coverage, it has pictures of people and events in their social pages. Not what I look for in a real Newspaper.
The only thing I look forward to is the Calvin & Hobbs comics!
Richard, I would suggest you ring The Nation again and see if they would offer you credit. You could maybe subscribe to something else instead. I think they also have international magazine in their collection.
DO you know you can read the news online?
I have been keep abreast of news there via http://www.bangkokpost.com
I thought I had some good news yesterday. The Nation rang back to say that they could offer me credit which I could use to subscribe to another of their publications. They said that they would fax me a list plus details of how much credit I would be given.
The bad news is that they just rang back again today to say that after taking away the premium I got and also the free month I don't actually have any credit! So, I am stuck now until mid-Decemebr with The Nation. That is another five months. I am already having withdrawal symptons from dropping my subscription to the Bangkok Post. Do I dare subscribe to two newspapers again? It would be just my luck that The Nation will actually pull out their thumb and produce a half decent newspaper that is worth its subscription price.
Thanks for telling us. Obviously we are not capable of making those kinds of decisions ourselves. We all know of course that when a newspaper runs three separate ads for subscriptions in the same edition of the newspaper then it is indeed in financial difficulties. I wonder how many people like myself rang them to cancel subscriptions.
They basically have until December to pull off a miracle. That is when my subscription will end and I have to make a decision as to whether it is worth renewing. At the moment it is a big "no". Take yesterday as an example. You may remember me saying before that recently they started running the same pictures and stories in both of their papers. Yesterday, the Daily Xpress went one step further and actually printed the same photo story twice in the same edition - on page 7 and page 8 we had pictures of swimwear models posing on the wing of a plane. I suppose it is alright if they have different headlines: "No Plane Janes" and "Nothing to Declare". I guess that is what happens when you have different editors for each section. So is it true that the main editor of Daily Xpress actually quit?
Today we had an interesting story in The Nation from the newswires about how American police are successfully bringing down the number of car jacking with the help of modern technology. When the thieves steal a decoy car, the police can remotely shut down the engine and then lock all doors. Apparently video clips of these thieves are a hit on youtube. All very interesting, but I had read that story already in the Bangkok Post yesterday! Which gives me an idea. It could be interesting to do a series of blogs called “Battle of the Dailies†just to see who reports the news first and more accurately.
http://www.dailyxpress.net/more_magazine.php?type=22
by the way i think The Nation's website is more interesting than Bangkok post
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