APRIL - MAY 2002 THE ON-LINE PUBLICATION OF THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS' CLUB OF HONG KONG
		Media An Asian Mission Ends =1   Todd Crowell Peter Cordingly The demise of Asiaweek in December 2001 created shock waves in the Hong Kong journalistic community. Two writers look at the newsweekly's death. By Todd Crowell Shortly after I joined Asiaweek as a staff writer in 1987, I made the mistake ofdescribing something in Asia as being "exotic." This promptly elicited a snappy little note from Senior Editor Bob Woodrow to the effect that the quaint customs of the natives of Washington state in the US from where I hailed might be called exotic. "Nothing in Asia is exotic!" It was on such a simple and basic premise as this that Asiaweek was founded in 1975 and on which it based much of the claim it made in its mission statement. The magazine's claim to be that authentic voice of Asia was often derided. Were not the editor-in-chief, managing editor, assistant managing editor from New Zealand and Australia, people would ask? Were not many of the editors and writers from Britain, Canada and America? Yes, many were, although there were also many "authentic" Asians such as Ric Saludo, Tom Polin, Cesar Bacani and Murakami Mutsuko. And when I first came, there was still a certain amount of indoctrination of new writers from editors (most of them Westerners), such as criticising me for calling something exotic or another little mistake I made early on. To illustrate a Hong Kong business story I enclosed a table of figures in the outline of a sailing junk. A Western cliché, said the editor, who insisted that a modern container ship outline be substituted. Founding editor Michael O'Neill once even forbade any picture of a street hawker. Like many of his decrees it was a little over the top, but similarly it had its own kind of logic. We were not in the business of publishing pictures of picturesque poverty for the benefit of Aunt Minnie back in Minneapolis. A street hawker was in Asia as commonplace as a Taco Bell in the US. In an odd way, that summed up Asiaweek 's philosophy. Everything about Asia should be seen as being normal, modern and with-it. We are in Asia; we are of Asia. Asia may not be the centre of the world, but it is the centre of our world. That seems now obvious and almost mundane, but in the context of the time, it was almost revolutionary. When Asiaweek started, most English publications often analysed Asia to death as if they were examining the, well, exotic habits of the natives. It is tempting to see the Asiaweek story as a kind of morality play in the larger context of globalisation. Two visionary founder editors, Indian T.J.S. George and New Zealander Michael O'Neill, set out to give Asia an independent English-language editorial voice. Of necessity, to keep the magazine afloat, they made pacts with the devil, twice, by selling most of the shares first to the American publisher Reader's Digest and then in 1984 to Time Inc. To be sure, the "devil" did not interfere very much in editorial content of Asiaweek through most of those years. And there are those who would argue that it ensured the independence and indeed the Asianness of the magazine for many years by obviating the need to find another supporter with a bankroll and an ax to grind (such as former President Ferdinand Marcos, who is often rumored to have given the founders some start-up cash.) Some of my former colleagues, especially the Asian ones, see a conspiracy behind the closure. In this theory, New York never wanted Asiaweek to succeed because it might compete with Time. The owners took advantage of the economic downturn to finally close it down. This theory gets some support from the fact that New York apparently is not interested in selling either the name or the mailing list to potential competitors, even though it did sell Asiaweek 's Chinese version to Ming Pao several years ago. Perhaps. But I think Asiaweek may have ended the way that orthodox communists always said capitalism would collapse - from its own internal contradictions. It was always hard to see the point in having two competing newsmagazines in the same market. The extensive revamping of the magazine last year was a way of trying to find a profitable niche that did not compete directly with Time. In any case, when I came to work there we scarcely were even aware that we were part of a larger media empire, and, of course, we were not encouraged to think of ourselves as being real Time Incers. Our offices were far removed from the other offices, and we hardly ever met our colleagues except at the annual (and much missed) end-of-year party at the old Hilton Hotel. Over time, this changed until the relationship with Time became almost incestuous, and not just because the two successors to Michael O'Neill, who was removed as editor in 1994, were married to the two successive editors of Time. Logic and economics seemed to dictate consolidations of various kinds from sharing offices to merging various operations on the business side. By the end, everyone was living cheek-by-jowl so that you could see Time's cover story on the bulletin board as you went to get coffee. It became harder and harder to think of these as competing magazines. Meanwhile, Time was going through its own metamorphosis expanding progressively from Time-Life to Time Warner to AOL Time Warner. Little Asiaweek must have seemed a progressively smaller cog in the giant empire, and one that hardly could be called a serious profit centre. Indeed, if it ever did make a profit, it was hardly more than a million or so, mere pocket change in the AOL Time Warner scheme of things. I doubt that anybody in New York ever cared much about Asiaweek 's purported Asian mission, except in so far as it defined a readership that was loyal to the magazine. In time, though, many of the executives became entranced with what they perceived to be a different and untapped readership, anxious for more business and technology news with an edge. That became the genesis of its much-touted makeover last year. Out went the mission statement; in came a new mission of "redefining business." I suppose nobody will ever know whether this formula would have succeeded in a more forgiving business climate. It was hit almost immediately by the double whammy of the dotcom meltdown and the attack on America on September 11. Who can say that the old Asiaweek would have fared any better, although it did weather other serious advertising droughts, such as in 1994, when salaries were temporarily cut by 20%. What can be said is this: Asiaweek once had a mission, then it had a business plan. When the business plan didn't work, never mind whether the concept was flawed or simply undermined by bad luck, then the magazine was left dangling in the wind. There remained no real rationale left to continue publishing. Live by the business plan; die by the business plan. Its demise leaves open the question whether there is still a need for some authentic Asian editorial voice to balance the American monopoly of the news. My sense is that there is a niche, not for a general news magazine or a business magazine, but for an opinion magazine, sort of along the lines of the New Republic. It would be the exact opposite of the Asiaweek that just died: heavy on commentary, politics and, of course, Asian-owned. Author/writer/editor Todd Crowell is currently the editor with Asia 2000 Ltd.		PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE Convenor: Paul Bayfield Editor: Saul Lockart Publications: Terry Duckham The Foreign Correspondents' Club Hong Kong 2 Lower Albert Rd Central Hong Kong Telephone: [852] 2521 1511 Fax: [852] 2868 4092 E-mail: fcc@fcchk.org