By Supalak Ganjanakhundee*

MMV/Thailand -- Thai mainstream media is now in a difficult situation and facing challenges from all directions which is forcing them to  undergo major reform or otherwise risk losing their leading position in public space. Their freedom, credibility and accountability are now being questioned by the whole of society. who expect to see the media perform their function professionally and honestly.

Political conflict over the past five years, since a group of people calling themselves the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) took to street protests in early 2006, has posited its consequence on Thai media. Since the PAD protests,  some of the media began to subscribe to partisan journalism, acting as a mouthpiece for the group's political propaganda, rather than reporting professionally.

Media who joined the band wagon exploited the protest movement to launch their revenge on the then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose five years in office posed a significant threat to media's freedom of expression. Many Thai media practitioners faced harsh libel law suits with demands of huge amounts of compensation beyond their ability to pay. Thaksin used money laundering law to scrutinize some media executives and senior journalists. Thaksin's cronies withdrew advertisements from many media outlets whose owners refused to comply with the then government line.

The PAD, a loose coalition of media tycoons, royalists, urban middle class, and the intellectual elite, in cooperation with the military, managed to topple Thaksin's government in a military coup in September 2006. But the regime change was not the end of the story, as die-hard Thaksin refused to perish from the political scene. His Thai Rak Thai party was dissolved by the military junta-backed constitutional court in 2007 but Thaksin formed a new proxy, the People Power Party, which later won a victory in the 2007 election and ran the government under late Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej and later his brother-in-law Somchai Wongsawat.

Bangkok's elite has never given in. The PAD began its ‘Episode II ‘ using street protests again to topple Thaksin's proxy. They seized the Prime Minister’s Office for six months and the Suvarnnabhumi airport stranding 300,000 passengers for a week in late 2008. Judicial activists dissolved Thaksin's proxy party and the other two coalition parties in the then government, using the charge of electoral fraud. This enabled break away politicians to form their new political parties and pour support into Abhisit Vejjajiva's Democrat Party to form the current cabinet which has run the country since December 2008. The new government was established with strong support from the military.

Now it is Thaksin's turn to take to street battles against the ruling government. His supporters tagged along forming a group comprised of the rural and urban poor who like his populist policies, progressive intellectuals and social activists who are against the military's role in politics, as well as ex-communist insurgents, banded together to form the red shirted movement under the name of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD). They have raised many significant issues in Thai politics ranging from the fundamental principle of democracy, justice and injustice, social inequality and some sense of 'class struggle’. They accused the elite and the palace through the king advisors of manipulating politics to bring down their elected government.

The mainstream media have taken their position along the same line as the elite, reporting mostly the government's agenda against the red shirted protesters. Media has oversimplified the protesters, portraying them as Thaksin's lackeys who are fighting to bring back their big boss who is now in exile, running away from a two year jail term on the charge of corruption and abuse of power.

Daily media headlines are closer to political expressions and statements, rather than regular news headlines used to highlight a story.  In many cases, the headline has simply been a scolding to the rural poor for disturbing and later destroying Bangkok's life. Many newspapers labeled the red shirts as street thugs, some subscribed to the government’s line calling them ‘terrorists’ while some compared them with animals such as the water buffalo which is equivalent to being called stupid, and the monitor lizard which is an insult  in Thai culture.  Reporting of the red shirt protests is absolutely far from being a fair tale. Rumor and disinformation which paint negative pictures of Thaksin are very common in mass media. Thaksin was reported dead many times by Thai media despite the former Prime Minister phoning into the protest site showing that he was still alive.

It is important to note that the current government uses state-run media outlets, mostly television and radio, as its political tool to build public consent and sentiment against the red shirt protesters. 

The red shirts had no choice but to open their own media outlets through print, satellite television and new media, via the Internet and mobile phone, which are mostly now banned. Hardware was no big deal for Thaksin who is a former telecommunications tycoon, but the content on Red media was nothing more than a mouthpiece for the protesters. In fact, the protesters' media such as the People's Channel better known as P-TV is a replica of  of the Yellow Shirt PAD's ASTV, which functions as a propaganda machine for the political movement, rather than as mass media. During the marathon protest in Bangkok and major provinces, the P-TV has carried nothing more than live broadcasting of the protest activities to their red shirt wearing audiences. Supporters and sympathizers of red shirted groups strongly criticized the mainstream media for its subjective and imbalanced coverage. This was also a reason why some media outlets were under attack during the riot in May.  The Red Shirt groups subsequently consumed only their own media and other like-minded media.

New technology in the telecommunications industry provides an alternative for people who are bored of mainstream media’s subjectivity and imbalanced reporting. Many people abandon mainstream newspapers, television and radio and turn to new media, notably the Internet. It is not so expensive for ordinary people to open a website which has the capacity to produce similar levels of information as  mainstream media. The website can contain simple text, audio and video, with unlimited content. Some outlets require no investment. It allows individuals to have channels to promote their own content.. It takes a few minutes to set up an e-mail account, face book and twitter which then links to a large group of people interactively. With internet and new media, people don't need to rely on news and information from mainstream media anymore.

During the protests in Thailand over the past years, people have put a lot of information, news, audio and video clips, relating to the proteston the internet to exchange information among themselves, and sometime to counter mainstream media which they believe is siding with their opponent. These groups of people called themselves 'cyber warriors' and use  the internet in their information and disinformation warfare.

Many taboo issues within the Thai context, such as the monarchy, have had a chance to surface into public space in this cyber world. Any issue that is unable to be reported in mainstream media can be found in the cyber world. The issue is increasingly raised these days in Thailand, since the palace has been accused of siding with elite groups to manipulate the politics against the protesters. Many people were arrested on the charge of Lese Majeste in connection with posting 'defamation' of the monarchy on the internet. Thai mainstream media has exercised self-censorship on the issue of the monarchy in order to avoid the risk of the Lese Majeste charge too. They mostly have refrained from reporting the cases of Lese Majeste, where many people including foreigners have been arrested and put into jail with media silence.

The current government exercised its tough power to shut down the protesters-related media. It used many draconian laws including criminal law, the internal security act, computer law and emergency law to control media which was considered to be a threat to national security.
Many things could be regarded as a threat to national security. Supporting the red shirted protest, criticism of government and talking about the monarchy could be considered as a threat to national security.

The government so far has shut down more than 50,000 websites including pornography and anti-monarchy sites. The authority did not close any mainstream media since they have already exercised self-censorship or reported in favor of the government agenda.   
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, in his five-point road map for national reconciliation to end the political crisis, proposed a media reform process, but no detail has been mapped out. He basically aimed to stop media being ‘provocative’ - notably among media that act as the mouth-piece of political groups, as well as state-run media.
Media activist groups including the Thai Journalist Association in their open letter to the

Prime Minister urged the government to reform and restructure state-run media. They called on the government to issue an organic law to guarantee freedom and protect ‘professional media—the term which needs a clear definition--’ from being used by political movements to create conflict and hate amongst the population. They also urged media fellows to strictly follow the profession’s ethical guidelines to stop disinformation, hate, conflict and violence. The group offered themselves as a coordinator for the process of media reform.

 In fact, Thai media has undergone many reforms throughout history. The main idea driving the reform is to ensure media is independent from political and business domination. The reform process so far however has merely pushed the media to go back and forth between the domination of political and business groups.

After the ‘Bloody May’ incident in 1992, some media outlets managed to get out from under state (notably military) domination, but unfortunately they fell under business domination. The 2006 coup seemed to end business domination in some media—at least one television station TV Thai formerly ITV—but many of them voluntarily returned to domination of the authorities.

The main question these days for media reform in Thailand is how to ensure it is really independent from all kind of domination.

* Supalak Ganjanakhundee is a seasoned journalist based in Bangkok