Editor-in-Chief Thomas Kean Digital Editor Sean Gleeson Frequency Weekly | Chief of Staff Oliver Slow Myanmar Editor Sann Oo Publisher Sonny Swe | |
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Frontier Myanmar (Burmese: တောင်တန်းမြန်မာ) is a news and business magazine in Yangon, Myanmar.
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Background
Frontier was established by Sonny Swe, a cofounder of The Myanmar Times and the son of a former Military Intelligence officer, who was jailed for his work at the newspaper from 2004 to 2013 after the purge of junta-era Prime Minister Khin Nyunt. Prior to Frontier, Sonny Swe was an investor in Mizzima Media Group alongside business magnate Serge Pun, but both men withdrew from the board in January 2015 citing financial pressures and management conflict with managing director Soe Myint.
Launched in July 2015, Frontier is one of the first privately-funded English language news publications to open in Myanmar since the government of Thein Sein abolished the country’s repressive censorship regime in 2012. Along with Mizzima, it is one of only two English language news weeklies in Myanmar.
Many of Frontier’s staff have been drawn from other prominent news organisations in Myanmar, including The Myanmar Times, The Irrawaddy, Mizzima and 7Day News. Thomas Kean, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, was previously editor of The Myanmar Times from 2010-2016.
Myitsone Dam
In July 2016, Frontier ran an editorial by Joern Kristensen, a development consultant and former member of the Mekong River Commission, suggesting that the government of Aung San Suu Kyi cancel the controversial and widely unpopular China-backed Myitsone Dam project in Myanmar’s north. Later that month, the government-run Kyemon newspaper endorsed Kristensen’s proposal and called for a “permanent suspension” of the project, in the first clear indication that the government was considering a cancellation of the $800 million dam since it took office that March.