TRT benefits from ‘biased’ TV coverage

Published on February 2, 2005

Opposition parties languish as Thai Rak Thai rules the airwaves .

Reports about the ruling Thai Rak Thai Party have dominated TV evening-news programmes ahead of Sunday’s general election, a survey has found.

Observations of evening-news programmes on six major free-TV stations between January 26-30 found that reports about Thai Rak Thai appeared most frequently – 220 times – and for the longest time – more than five hours.

It was followed far behind by the Democrat Party, which amassed 160 reports for less than three hours, and the coalition Chat Thai Party, which appeared 102 times on evening-news programmes for a little over two hours.

The TV stations are Channels 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and iTV.

The results of the survey, which was conducted by Assumption University’s Abac Poll Research Centre, were released yesterday.

Judging by the frequency of coverage, news about Thai Rak Thai’s major and smaller rallies as well as campaigning by candidates were three of the top-five most frequent reports on TV. Election news about Chat Thai and the Democrats came second and fifth, respectively, in terms of frequency.

In a separate survey by Abac Poll, almost 70 per cent of eligible voters said they believed TV coverage of the election could influence how people voted, said Professor Srisakdi Charmonman, chairman of the Abac Poll Institute.

However, about one in three of the respondents said they believed results of public opinion polls had no influence on voters. That was compared to one in five who believed opinion polls influenced voters.

More than 45 per cent of those surveyed agreed that the mass media was not neutral in covering political developments ahead of Sunday’s election, compared to 20.4 per cent who believed in the media’s neutrality.

More than 47 per cent of respondents said they believed the media did not fairly cover election campaigning by different political parties, compared to 25.8 per cent who agreed that the parties were fairly covered.

When asked what types of media they have followed in obtaining new developments about the election, 91.7 per cent of those surveyed chose TV. That was followed by newspapers (49.4 per cent), campaign posters (47.3) and radio (28.5). Results of opinion polls came last with 4.2 per cent.

The second survey was conducted on 1,156 eligible voters aged 18 and over in Bangkok and surrounding provinces on January 30-31.

Noppadon Kannika, director of Assumption’s research centre, said that he believed certain elite groups would benefit from TV’s “unfair” coverage of political parties ahead of the election, particularly following a ban by the Election Commission on pre-election public opinion polls.

The ban on polls “gives the elite groups an opportunity to lead voter opinion ahead of the election. They now have the privilege of creating a good image to give themselves an edge over the competitors,” Noppadon said.

He said that as its methodology could be scientifically explained, an opinion poll was more inclined to reduce bias in reporting political developments ahead of an election.

Media reports based on scientifically conducted polls would be more reliable and therefore give sufficient information to uninformed voters about the available choices, Noppadon said.

The academic also called on the Election Commission to review its ban on opinion polls.

Prasong Lertrattanavisut, secretary-general of the Thai Journalists Association, said that today’s Thai media, especially TV, had been under the influence of the state and advertisers.

He also noted that certain TV ads purportedly to announce achievements by state agencies could eventually benefit ruling parties.

Varin Thiamjaras, secretary-general of the Pollwatch Foundation, agreed that ruling political parties stood to gain from TV coverage ahead of the election.

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