TOWARD A NEW ASIAN ORDER : A WORLD REPORT SPECIAL SECTION : Media : Hard-Hitting Weekly Talks Straight to Readers

When Henry K. H. Ho, managing director of a realty firm in Bangkok, wants news on Thailand’s domestic political battles, he doesn’t depend on the local press or well-known international newsmagazines. He turns to a Hong Kong-based regional publication, the Far Eastern Economic Review.

“I think it’s the only politically oriented magazine,” he said. “It is stories on Thailand, on the premiership, that I find interesting. . . . You get the impression that they (the Review’s reporters) are straight shooters, that they are not someone’s puppets.”

Known for its hard-hitting contents, the Far Eastern Economic Review has earned an enviable reputation as an authoritative source on Asian affairs.

“There is really no one that duplicates or in any way represents the kind of information that the Review does,” asserted the 46-year-old magazine’s publisher, Thomas P. Eglinton. “Whether you read the Review or not would be (primarily) dictated by the depth of your interest in what’s going on in Asia.”

The Review, owned since 1987 by Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co., is edited largely by Westerners and read widely by Asians.

Established by British visionaries in 1946, the Review has reported and analyzed major events in Asia ranging from China’s tumultuous Cultural Revolution to Japan’s emergence as an economic giant.

Worldwide circulation figures for July-December, 1991, totaled 72,489, of which 71% was concentrated in Asia. Eglinton said that about 58% of the Review’s readers hold top management positions and that the average family income of subscribers is close to $100,000.

The weekly has 14 editorial news bureaus and more than 40 correspondents and contributors worldwide who are responsible for providing political and economic analyses that go into greater depth than those in most competing publications.

In a typical example of the type of coverage that has been the Review’s strength, Tokyo Bureau Chief Robert Delfs last month wrote a 1 1/2-page article examining a political grouping backed by the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo). The loosely defined but increasingly influential group, called Rengo Sangiin and composed of union-backed members of the upper house of Japan’s Parliament, appears likely to pose new complications for the government of Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa.

Delfs reported that results of the forthcoming elections in July could make Rengo Sangiin the second-largest opposition grouping in the upper house and might lead to the formation of a new united social democratic political grouping capable of seriously challenging the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Delfs said in an interview that he often talks to Japanese parliamentary and political party leaders, whom he described as “fabulous people to talk to--very well-informed.” He added that access to them “is relatively easy; it’s the horse’s mouth.”

Such ease of accessibility is a welcome relief for Delfs, who worked in China from 1986 to 1991 as the Review’s Beijing bureau chief. It was never easy to get interviews with influential government officials in Beijing.

Lincoln Kaye, the magazine’s current Beijing bureau chief, agreed that there are many difficulties associated with working in China, but he said that the Review’s character helps mitigate some of them.

“Given all the constraints that you have working in China--the difficulty of access, the way things can backfire upon your sources, upon the people you deal with--at least one thing we have working for us at the Review is our sort of British antecedents: the British conventions of journalism that we operate under,” Kaye commented.

“We can deal much more with paraphrase. We can be a little bit vaguer about attribution. We can hear heavenly voices more readily than the American dailies that I grew up on,” he explained.

It is also simpler to do in-depth writing when your readers already have a basic understanding of the country you cover, Kaye noted.

Derek Davies, editor of the Review from 1964 to 1988 and still a frequent contributor, noted that the Review is often read in Asian countries where the domestic press suffers from censorship.

On Dec. 26, 1987, the Review itself fell victim to such restrictions when the Singapore government ordered the magazine’s circulation there to be cut from more than 10,000 copies to virtually nothing for its allegedly “engaging in the domestic politics of Singapore.”

The move stemmed from a Review story describing the arrest and detention of 16 Roman Catholic church workers, along with other moves against Catholic priests and churches for allegedly becoming involved in a Marxist plot to overthrow the Singapore government.

The Review was also formally accused of libel by then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. The case was tried in Singapore in November, 1989, and the Review was found guilty and fined $133,000 plus interest and plaintiff’s cost.

Singapore’s actions were a blow to the Review’s financial health. Advertising revenue dropped from a high of $12.5 million in 1987 to a low of $11.5 million in 1989, Eglinton said.

By November, 1991, the Singapore government and the Review appeared to have reached some kind of truce, with an official announcement that the magazine would be allowed to distribute 160 copies per issue to Singapore subscribers beginning in January this year.

Last year, the weekly’s annual advertising revenue jumped back to $12.4 million, Eglinton said.

Gordon Crovitz, a former legal columnist of the Wall Street Journal who is the Review’s new editor, said that his goal is to encourage more dynamic writing.

“The more complicated a subject is, the more decibels the writing needs to be,” he said. “As the leading political and economic magazine of the region, our task is to make sure that we can provide information to the increasingly sophisticated readers in this part of the world.”

Dow Jones named Crovitz editor effective May 1, replacing Philip Bowring, a longtime Hong Kong resident and 17-year Review veteran.

Karen Elliot House, vice president-international for Dow Jones, said it is the parent company’s policy to bring in “new blood and new thinking” every four to five years.

“You have to constantly reassess who are your competitors, how are you doing against them, what are the needs of your readers and how you can serve them better,” House said. “Clearly, the marketplace is changing and there are more publications out here. . . . We’d like to have a fresh set of eyes and ears that look and listen to Asia and evaluate the situation.”