Sonny Swe
Sonny is co-founder and CEO of Frontier Myanmar, a Yangon-based independent media organisation that reports on current affairs, business and culture in English and Burmese. He entered the industry in 1996 as a printer and four years later co-founded The Myanmar Times – the country's first non-government, English-language newspaper in four decades – together with an Australian partner. While groundbreaking, the paper was still forced to operate under strict military censorship and in 2005 Sonny Swe was sentenced to 14 years in prison for breaching censorship laws. Released under a government amnesty in 2013, he briefly rejoined the Myanmar Times but moved on to become CEO of Mizzima Media Group and eventually launched Black Knight Media Group, the publisher of Frontier Myanmar, in 2015. Starting out with an English magazine, Frontier began publishing online in Burmese language the following year and has since won numerous awards for its investigative reporting, feature writing and commentaries. It is also leading the way in Myanmar in developing new business models for media. In February 2020 Frontier launched a membership programme to deepen its relationship with readers and build a community of people who care about independent media. In February 2020 Frontier launched a membership programme to deepen its relationship with readers and build a community of people who care about independent media. Since the February 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Frontier has relocated to northern Thailand, from where it continues to deliver in-depth reporting on developments inside Myanmar.