Far Eastern Economic Review to close

HONG KONG, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Asia's respected Far Eastern Economic Review, losing readers and facing declining advertising revenue, will cease publication in December, its parent said.

FEER, founded in 1946, was always known for its hard-hitting reporting. It had been a weekly until it was changed into a monthly opinion magazine in 2004 by Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp.

Company officials said the continued loss of readers and advertising revenues made FEER's existence unsustainable, the BBC reported, adding the publication's closure will mark the end of an era for challenging journalism in Asia.

Because of FEER's independent reporting, many authoritarian governments used to black out its pages or ban it outright, the report said.

Dow Jones said it will close the magazine so it can expand online content in several languages and strengthen the Wall Street Journal in Asia, the report said.

FEER's reporting legends include Richard Hughes of Korean War fame and Nate Thayer, who found Cambodia's Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, the BBC said.

"It was a tremendously exciting place to work," Philip Bowring, who worked at FEER until 1992, told the Hong Kong Standard. "It was the place where up-and-coming journalists would go, because they were given an opportunity to prove that they were good."

David Plott, the last editor of the weekly Far Eastern Economic Review, said the publication in its heyday employed the greatest concentration of knowledge and expertise on Asia.