Stiletto by Max Kolbe – September, 2008

Published on Sep 15, 2008 by Luke Hunt

Making It & Breaking, Media on the Move Splitting-up, breaking up, it may not be that hard to do after all. Across East Asia and the Pacific the media game is changing. The takeover of Reuters by Thomson is obviously having an enormous impact and was particularly felt down under where Australian Associated Press (AAP) with Clive Marshall at the helm has ended its long-standing and exclusive arrangements with Reuters after the British-based agency upped its prices. It was an historical decision, given that AAP led the syndicate made up of Commonwealth wire services that bailed Reuters out of bankruptcy at the end of World War II. New Zealand Press Association, South African Press Association and Canadian Press were also....

War Torn Flee to Sabah

Published on Aug 16, 2008 by Luke Hunt

PHOTO FEATURE by Luke Hunt PALAU GAYA, Malaysia — In the shallow waters off the coast of the Kota Kinabalu in the Malaysian state of Sabah in northern Borneo, about 30,000 Philippine migrants have built stilted homes. Most live in absolute poverty, their families having fled their homeland in the southern Philippines, where separatists have battled the government for more than three decades. Malaysian authorities are attempting to forcibly repatriate thousands of Philippinos. Malaysian authorities say up to 150,000 of the estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants living in Sabah could be sent back. .

Stiletto by Max Kolbe – April, 2008

Published on Apr 15, 2008 by Luke Hunt

Britney Outshines Iraq as Playboy Hits The Philippines Five years after the invasion of Iraq and the US death toll has passed 4,000, but less and less people are noticing as the conflict is being relegated on the list of most important stories. The number one daily stories are now more likely to be oil or dollar reports as America tries to avert a recession. “People see gas going up and the price of their house going down …. It’s more immediate than the Iraq war,” Bob Stover, managing editor of Florida Today in Melbourne, Florida was recently reported as saying. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), which measures news content weekly in a mix of....

Stiletto by Max Kolbe – February, 2008

Published on Feb 15, 2008 by Luke Hunt

Going Going (Publications are) Gone The American newspaper owner and publisher, who staked his life savings on Cambodia, Michael Hayes has sold a majority stake in the Phnom Penh Post to two Australian businessmen. Hayes made the sale, for an undisclosed sum, after years of industry doldrums when English-language publications were more likely to be closed, given away or dumbed down into a pretentious trade magazine, than offloaded for a financial return. Ross Dunkley, chief executive officer of Myanmar Consolidated Media, which publishes the Myanmar Times, and Bill Clough, an Australian miner and oil and gas entrepreneur, have taken a controlling stake in the paper. The Phnom Penh Post, which publishes every two weeks, was founded by Hayes 17 years....

Luke Hunt

Published on Jan 1, 2008 by Luke Hunt

Luke Hunt is a correspondent who writes, photographs and produces television packages out of Southeast Asia. Much of his work is divided between The Diplomat, Australian Associated Press (AAP) and Voice of America. He has also freelanced for The Economist, The New York Times, The Times of London and The Age in Melbourne, among many others.He began his career in journalism in the early 1980s after traveling through what was then some of the world’s trouble-spots, including Northern Ireland and the south of Morocco. Hunt initially worked for AAP and then Agence France-Presse where he served as bureau chief in Afghanistan and Cambodia and later as Deputy Economics Editor for Asia.Additionally, he has covered conflicts in Iraq, Sri Lanka, Kashmir....