Journalism

Press: Enemies of the Thai State?

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The Foreign Correspondent’s Club hosted another panel as part of it’s occasional series on freedom of the press this week.

Panel members were Anchalee Paireerak, operator of http://www.fm9225.com, one of two closed�websites, and executive director of and political commentator for community radio FM92. Also speaking was a representative from SEAPA, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance, Pravit Rojanaphruk, senior reporter for The Nation, commentator on media reform, promotion of transparency and public accountability and democratic culture, and Sue Saeri Mee Jing Rue author of a recently published Thai-language work on the subject “Does Press Freedom Really Exist?”
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Critics have long maintained that Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is unwilling to accept a totally free press, especially when it is critical of his policies.� They argue that his administration has fired, sued or otherwise silenced most of the independent voices on the air and in print — an assault on press freedom that they believe carries the pungent scent of power abused. Mr. Thaksin’s government has responded by promising better relations with the media in his second term.

But in mid-June, the government acted again. After, Anchalee Paireerak, the female 32 year old professional journalist & operator of the 24 hour community radio news station criticized Thaksin for enriching himself through his political policies, The Ministry of Information and Communications Technology ordered her two websites shut down on the grounds that they posed a threat to national security, defamed senior officials and employed language guaranteed to incite public unrest.

However, Anchalee explained that when the officials appeared on her doorstep to close her down, they explained that the reason was because her radio antenna was higher than 30 feet, reached too wide an area and could interfere with air traffic causing a plane crash. We all laughed at that of course. She has decided to leave Thailand for Australia temporarily after being sued by one of Mr. Thaksin’s corporations. She has established another website: http://www.fm9225.net.

The most interesting comments were made by the SEAPA representative who outlined the complexity of the economic and cultural pressures against a free press in Thailand. For example efforts to unionize the journalists have failed miserably because it is culturally very difficult for Thai people to confront authority.

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Surface Culture

Posted on by Laughingnomad

India’s spirituality is strong and is seemingly integrated with it�s culture. So this is the first country we have been in that has resisted becoming westernized…at least on the surface…no big time make-up, no dark glasses, no T shirts, no baseball caps, no blue jeans hanging off the pubic bone of young girls (however we have seen a new sari style that is off the hip with a ring in the naval) and no Bobby Marley, rap music, baggy pants, western food or drip coffee-just the obsequious Nescafe. Our hotel offered the Continental or American Breakfast. Grilled chicken, grilled potatoes, juice and tea or coffee. No American fast food outlets in all of Delhi except for one McDonalds that only serves vege and chicken burgers.

Hardly any bookstores. Closest thing to the west we encountered listening to a DJ in a red turban play 70�s American music at the El Rodeo Restaurant where all the waiters were dressed up as cowboys and serving bad Mexican food.

Indians usually prefer to eat only Indian food, Mrs. Singh said when we stayed at her hotel in Jaipur. She described an Indian owned tour company she and her sister-in-law traveled with throughout Europe last spring. She was disappointed to find that the tour company had it’s own cook and every meal was taken on the bus-all Indian food!

News Media
In the English language Delhi Times newspaper there are 14 serious pages of “Matrimonials-for the better half of your life.” Typical Example: “Alliance from (with) tall fair slim convent educated girl for US settled Bengali Brahmin boy Feb 1967 5’11” nonsmoker tetotaler visiting India in Sept Caste State no bar” (in other words being the proper caste is not necessary). Another: “Bride from elite business house for graduate, son of top industrialist.” And another: “Wanted bride from only very big business/Industrialist Family from Son of National Fame very big rich industrialist family.” This apparently the conduit for meeting a marriage prospect for non-religious middle and upper classes.

I get a big kick out of the newswriting style, usually concerning controversial political issues, that go like this lead paragraph: “Despite all-out diplomatic efforts, India�s plans to get piped gas from Bangladesh may turn out to be a pipedream.” And this: Quacks have found a way out if their hospitals are shut down; change the name and keep the racket going. And another: “The government will soon crack the whip on driving schools in the Capital for the poor skills they are teaching Delhiiters.� And this headline concerning Prime Minister Advani’s oversight in not inviting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to a swearing-in ceremony of another minister: “Jaya pipes down after Advani says he’s sorry.”

And finally this… “US tries to stop (corporate) rot with new rules.”

Tanzanian News

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Picked up a Sunday Observer-local Tanzanian paper in English; lead article: “Reading culture badly lacking” lamented the lack of interest in reading and warning that Tanzania could become isolated and left behind as the world was “changing so fast.” The advent of TVs, the Internet and use of CD-Roms, according to the article, has contributed to the decline of reading.

Subsidiary article extolled President Mkapa’s gesture to include opposition parties in a discussion of issues concerning the country. Big front page news!

A third front page article by correspondent Saum Zidadu reported on a conference on “Reporting Africa” held in Gaborone, Botswana. Ms. Connie Rapoo Garebatho, in her paper “Gender and Human Rights” said that “Negative coverage has created negative images of the African continent which has had a negative effect on the continent’s economic, political and social development, especially hurting women, and makes Africa look hopeless in the eyes of the rest of the world.”

Conference presenters said that most media houses in the developed world report negatively about Africa as not only a poor continent that it is, but also as a continent that has no hope economically, socially or politically. Most of the time Africa only makes headlines, the conferees said, when people are dying of hunger, engaged in civil wars and natural disasters…

Finally, an inside column on literature by Bernard Mapalala titled “Nelson Mandela’s Ageing Principles” gave an unflattering review of the official biography of Mandela written by Anthony Sampson that came out in 1999. Apparently many African leaders did not feel supported by Mandela after his release from prison. Well…?