Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
(
www.mizzima.com
) have all established bureaus back in Myanmar - one of the clearest
indications of an improved reporting environment.
It's not a clear-cut improvement though. In June 2013 the government banned an edi-
tion of
Time
magazine that carried a feature on the radical monk Ashin Wirathu and the
969 movement. The amnesty given to jailed reporters comes with conditions that many
have found difficult or impossible to reconcile with their profession. Reporters at DVB
staged a strike in 2012 to protest against senior editors' decision to hold a training ses-
sion with MRTV, the government's mouthpiece broadcaster. One of DVB's board mem-
bers, Myanmar expert and journalist Bertil Lintner, resigned over the affair.
And even though it has reached its best ever position, in 2013 Myanmar still ranked
151 out of 179 nations on Reporters Without Borders' index on media censorship. Re-
porters Without Borders also joined the chorus of critics of the new Printing and Publish-
ing Enterprises law as in its present form it fails to 'meet international standards on pro-
tection of the media.'
Around 70% of Myanmar's population lives in rural areas and relies on farming for its
livelihood. A third of the population lives below the poverty line.
Print
The dissolution of the censorship board meant that private daily newspapers could be
published for the first time since the early 1960s. Thirty-one companies gained licences
to print daily newspapers; not all of them survived the year - as of October 2013, the
Ir-
rawaddy
reported that daily newspapers were down to 10.
Apart from the well-established English-language weekly t
he Myanmar Times
, which
runs bold news items, there's the new English-language
Myanma Freedom Daily
. Even
the notorious propaganda sheet
New Light of Myanmar
is having to move with the times;
it's been partially privatised and its staff were sent to Tokyo to be trained by Kyodo
News in improved news standards ahead of the relaunch of the paper at the end of 2013.
For further information on Myanmar's economy read the reports compiled by the Har-
vard Ash Centre (
http://www.ash.harvard.edu/ash/Home/Programs/Institute-for-Asia/
