HEADS PUBLISHING EMPIRE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000300010031-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 27, 2006
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: September 8, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

N.4VI Y02-,X 114 t en,
Approved For Release 2006/11/27: CIA-l D?I~ 01314R00030001003 8
8 SEP an Ap~ ~
Sally Aw Sian, fl,e only lady publisiler.
Jii )Jong' ]Kons;?, is the first woman in. fl. le.
_20-year history of the Interwitional Press
Z}istitute to be elected its president,
The IN has a n etlbcrship of J,800
editors and publishers from 60 countries wlin
jealously guard the freedom of the press, try to
sea to it that the free flow of news is not inter-
rupted by governments or anyone clue and ihat
newanten are pr?olected from cetsnr?ship and.op.
prassion.
the do a few other things,*' ]Miss Sian, said
daring- a recent visit here. "The Institute carries
an a training program for newsmen in Kenya.
1;'a pay for that. '"id We. run another one in
Nigeria m th' a grant from the Ford Foundation."
I lump, pleasant and proficient, hiss Sian's
nov-s empire consists of two bimonthly ma .razines,
the- Fuglish lan qua c Ilpnc' hone Standard and
two Chinese Papers, the Sing Tao To I'ao (t.he
Singapore horning Daily) and th
Si
'
'
e
ng
}
an
IN an Pao (The Singapore Afternoon D ily)
. IL ..
Chinese papers have a combined circulation of
2.20,000, largest pn the island.
'i'ho type for them is hand set, but no pages
are photographed, flown to Tapei, tl;c? Fl tIippiites,
. San Francisco and New Fork and printed on ofi:-
set presses.
"It's two days late." lis. Sian,, admitted, "but
' h
thhat doesnt really flatter. in the Pa. five.
a yne
thler?e'J been of -T
big influx of I;oi:g? Kong, Chinese
-into the States and they're hungry for news from
back home and Southeast Asia and the inainland."
Ijer father n?ho owned three pharmaceutical
houses in IIong Kong made his :fortune with one
cure-all ointinenf, somethiii Ile mentholatui,
called Tiger Halm, Jt ~ry Ilong Kong, resident
and tote ist sooner or 1ate? says, "Lets go to the
Alger Kahn Gardens." They're the big lovely
parks filled with fine sculpture found
d b
e
y her
father and al ways free t Am r e are now the second large t Ci,inno papers
foss,.,`tt a chr. r o e public us also on the West and Fast Coasts," Sian said.
t 1 chain o~ newspaper's in Sing?a~,ore
Bangkok, Malayasia and on mainland China be- 5,000\eTh ofirst.r C1 neseis apes' San l~'ranciscd
fora Mao took over in lc4?. paper is the United
Mks Scan's brrothct piloting time Tamil , plane Journal with 10,000. _ t
to check on the paper in :l1nhayasia, crashed anti callynfrom extre> e r~ight'to t~heteptreneileft and
kvas killed. Ile Was 32 and the heir apparent include two Connnunist papers, Miss Sian is
After the grief subsided her father asked his fiercely independent. She scorched the Contntu_
clazhgihter: "Why not: {:1?9 the papers?"
She worked in overv nists for inspiring the 1967 riots, ,vir,'ch took some
department, accounting' courage; and she criticized Chiang Kai-shek
Purchasing-, circulation, adverirsino editorial, being unrealistic and unaware 'of the change in
-Starting at the bottom. Two years after she the wind. for
started herui,ntertl e pprcrtice phairliar lliuI lIan Icon!
Toll might think ahat: being so close sc _llan,
houses. 'Miss Sian had to ion the Ja , . Kong is near a hat
1 .lilt, aye
l aces. said, "}i~e.'re not, Our fcrtuPe is s bright. We have
"I was fris;lhtened, very .fri ~htened " she sal" some crime, but noticing compared to the States.
it I didn't have much Choice." We do not have the pain of youth probleni,, or
She was 22. She was caught in a riptide of ? - a drug culture. And Are do not have the doubtful
resenthncnt from sonic of the cmployes who blessings of women's lib."
Sally ;1n- Sian--Always Ahead of the Typo
couldn't see a yonng? Woman as the big boss.
Hut that's an ingrained attitude- lji,s Mall
explained, You have to be patient. YOU
can't
d aege that overnight,?
In the 10 years that she's been a publisher,
::he's earned their respect by increasing the cir-?
culalion of the Chinese papers by almost; 30 '0,
tripling her classified ails 00 % consistent
to use offset. presses in g Kong' and oracle
all her competitors follow suit. She makes at
least three trips a year to America, examining
new .p1'blishiug met.liods, frcnr special inks to
g P,-
computers. She's
always ahead of the type.
Five years P,--o she conceived the idea of an
American edition of her Chinese papers, started
the first in Svc Francisco and when it went well,
began Me second in New York. In both eciilions,
she shrewdly added short' fiction, entertainment"
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Approved For Release 2006/11/27: CIA-RDP88-01314R000300010031-8