Phuket Gazette
The Phuket Gazette was founded in 1993 by John Magee, an investment banking and corporate finance refugee from American Express, New York, and Lehman Brothers Asia, Hong Kong. The publication’s stated purpose at that time was to provide the then fledgling community of locally resident foreigners with a “half serious” English- language newspaper.
Focused on local NEWS – “good, bad, bizarre and often irrelevant” – the Gazette has grown from a monthly, 12-page black & white curiosity to the 68-page full-color tabloid that it is today.
Major milestones in the company’s development have included the launch in 1997 of the Gazette Guide, Phuket’s English-language telephone directory; the acquisition of 20% of the firm’s shares by the Nation Multimedia group in 2000; the launch of PGTV in 2006; and the ascendancy of the Gazette Online to the top of Google for Phuket in 2009. Asked what has enabled the Gazette to survive when so many imitations have failed over the years, Magee cites “a dedicated corps of capable Thai managers; an equally dedicated team of professional journalists – not just guys who ‘talk English’; and religious resistance to publishing’s traditional Trojan horses: Hype, Credit and Barter.”
www.phuketgazette.net
