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Ten Brands of Thai Journalism
1 December, 2005
Dark journalism, suicide-bomb journalism...you name it. |
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Take your pick: Suicide-bomb, Militant, Dark, Comrade, Disillusioned, Sceptical, Soft, Fastfood, Dinosaur and My TV Call it “Radical journalism”, “Militant journalism”, or “Suicidebomb” journalism that’s exactly what the Manager Media Group is practising with its audacious coverage of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Columns and news reports in the Manager Media Group daily newspaper, weekly magazine, online edition are aimed not only at discrediting the prime minister but at fomenting nothing less than regime change If you visit www.manager.co.th, you’ll discover foul and outright slanderous language against Thaksin. Internet language is a curious phenomenon.
You can’t broadcast improper language on TV or radio, nor are you supposed to write
sleazy slanders in the print media.
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Even stranger, the Manager Media Group only shifted its editorial policy from
supporting to lambasting the Thaksin leadership since last year. Sondhi
Limthongkul, chieftain of the Manager Media Group, was furious that Viroj
Nualkhair, former president of Krung Thai Bank and a key ally, was sacked from
office by the Bank of Thailand without due support from the government. And
when the Thaksin government took away Manager’s TV business and
Sondhi’s “Thailand Weekly” programme, it was like dropping the last straw on
the camel’s back.
In fact, Thai Post or Naew Na had pioneered what you might call “Dark
journalism” before the Manager Media Group. Thai Post has made it known all
along that the Thai public should not trust the Thaksin government in any policy
issue, plagued as it is by vested interests. Pleao Si Ngern is a veteran columnist,
who, with his radical but at times very subtle views, represents the voice of Thai
Post.
Naew Na has also been following a similar line as Thai Post, attacking every
major policy of the Thaksin government. Prasong Soonsiri, who wrote a daily
column, was widely read because of his intelligence and deep background
knowledge. He was also a pillar of Naew Na. Predictably, Naew Na ran into
trouble with the government and Prasong – considered a dangerous enemy of
the prime minister – was forced to terminate his column.
Dark journalism still runs deep in both daily publications, but they account for
only a tiny share of the Thai newspaper market.
Thai Rath and Daily News, the number one and number two newspapers in
terms of circulation, have been practising “Comrade journalism” at best. Thai
Rath has deliberately left the Sondhi phenomenon out of its coverage, which has
proved to have far-reaching political implications. Tens of thousands of people
went to listen to Sondhi’s “Thailand Weekly” programme at Lumpini Park, yet
Thai Rath did not treat the event as newsworthy.
Sondhi claimed that when Thai Rath people load newspapers into mini trucks for
distribution upcountry, they throw away copies of Manager.
Meanwhile, Daily News does not support Sondhi and reports about him very
cautiously.
Thai Rath is still treating Sondhi like a leave falling from a tree. It is
practising “Comrade journalism” with the highest degree of skill.
Matichon newspaper has been disillusioned with Thaksin following GMM
Grammy’s recent attempt to take over its company. The Matichon people believe
that Thaksin was towering his dark shadow over GMM Grammy. Before the GMM
Grammy episode, Matichon was practising “I-won’t-hurt-you-but-I-can’t
guarantee-your-friends journalism”. Now Matichon looks upon Thaksin with a
different eye, hence embracing what you might call “Disillusioned journalism”.
From the outset, publications under the Nation Multimedia Group has been
keeping an eye on the Thaksin phenomenon with a mixture of scepticism and
cynicism. We may run off the track sometimes but most of the time we have
been rather consistent with our sceptical message as to whether Thaksin is the
real thing. You may say that we are practising “Sceptical journalism”.
The Bangkok Post, given the political interference looming over the editorial
team, now pursues “Soft journalism”, particularly after it faced the threat of a
one-billion-baht lawsuit.
Most TV channels, controlled by the government, are reporting the news events
in the old fashioned way, touting government policy. They take pictures and put
microphones in the mouths of politicians – and that’s it. Most TV anchors like to
read out the contents of daily newspapers without doing their homework
properly. They are conveniently practising “Fast food journalism”.
Samak Sundaravej and Dusit Siriwan, who co-host a talk show programme on
Channel 5 and Channel 9, have gone so far as to practise “Dinosaur journalism”,
lambasting any enemies of the state in the style of the authoritarian journalism
of the 1970s.
Thaksin has effectively summed up the state of journalism in Thailand. At the
height of the public outcry over the Matichon takeover, he distanced himself from
the controversy. He asked why would he do such a stupid thing when the
government already had all the broadcast media on its side? Then, he added, he
also knew the people at Thai Rath, Daily News and Matichon.
The only private TV station is ITV but it is controlled by Shin Corp and thus
practices “My TV journalism”. In short, the Thaksin government has the
mainstream media under firm control.
Most Thai people, say 90 per cent of the 65 million population, get their news
from watching TV. The print media accounts for only 4 per cent of the
population, reflecting the low level of newspaper reading in this country. That is
why Thaksin is not worried at all about all the noisy criticism from the minority
press because it will never reach across the broad spectrum of Thai people who
have instead been bombarded with soap operas, game shows and, of course,
his own populist policies.
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