MEDIA-THAILAND: Desperately Seeking Debate

With permission from the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand, the AMF is reprinting in full BBC correspondent Jonathan Head's article that tackles the perils of reporting in Thailand in these politically interesting times. The story came out in the FCCT's magazine, Dateline, in its 2007 first quarter issue.

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What does it say about a country where a newspaper article that reports, and produces evidence of, growing anti-foreign sentiment (as a recent International Herald Tribune piece did), itself provokes a howl of protest, that foreign journalists are once again unfairly bashing Thailand? We are living through one of the most unsettled periods in recent Thai history, and the country is jittery. Thailand’s self-image, as a country once admired for its tolerance, its democratic values and pragmatic embrace of globalisation, has been badly shaken over the past year, and everything the foreign media publishes about the country is being scrutinised as never before. It is becoming a difficult place to report, having long been one of the easiest in the region.

The coup that unseated Thaksin Shinawatra as Prime Minister last September threw up a host of important issues, both for the Thai people and the foreign media. Was the situation before the coup so irretrievable that the unconstitutional overthrow of the government could be justified? Was Mr. Thaksin, the most successful vote-winner in Thai history, actually undemocratic? Did he win his popularity largely through vote rigging and unsustainable populist politics, as alleged by his critics, or was he a new kind of politician who threatened the old elite, and so was kicked out of office at gunpoint? Was all the apparent progress of the 1990s, the return of the soldiers to barracks, the flourishing of civil society, the drafting of a new liberal constitution, just an illusion?

Never before have I reported from a country that has so lost its bearings. There seems to be no consensus at all on which direction Thailand should take. Public despair is palpable over the way the interim government has floundered, failing to show any kind of vision that might lead the country to a different and happier place than it was in under Mr. Thaksin. So the one thing you might think is essential right now is a thorough debate, about what went so wrong, and how to fix it. This is surely the proper role of the media, both local and foreign.

Well, that isn’t what the country wants, apparently. When Mr. Thaksin broke his self-imposed silence, and started giving interviews, there was an immediate backlash against anyone who dared give him column inches or airtime. Morning after morning, I listened to former Senator Jermsak Pintong repeating on his radio programme the claim that foreign broadcasters routinely accepted payments from politicians like Thaksin who wanted airtime, without ever providing a shred of evidence; this defamatory charge has been made by so many other commentators in Thailand it is now widely believed.

There was the strange suggestion in several local op ed pieces that Mr. Thaksin had played dirty in employing an American public relations firm, as though no other politician had ever done such a thing, and that this firm had somehow managed to guarantee that the former PM was subjected only to softball interviews. His successor, General Surayud Chulanont, refused all requests for interviews in this first four months in office, but then complained that Mr. Thaksin had an unfair advantage because he could afford a good PR firm, as though the resources of the Thai government could not stretch to such an extravagance. Given the dismal ratings of General Surayud’s government these days, hiring a good PR firm sounds like a pretty sensible investment.

Likewise, any foreign journalist who dares to question the soundness of the ‘Sufficiency Economy’ philosophy, is accused of wilfully misunderstanding it, of praising Thaksinomics and forgetting Mr. Thaksin’s own hostility to the foreign press. We are accused of being cheerleaders for the unfettered market economy that Mr. Thaksin was supposedly inflicting on Thailand.

Being harangued for what you write is a normal part of the job, and none of these attacks, whether justified or not, would really matter if they reflected a robust debate within the Thai media about the state of the country. But that does not appear to be the case. It is extraordinary that for all the condemnation of foreign media for the way they have given Mr. Thaksin an easy platform, the local media have shied away from interviewing him at all. After all, this man has arguably made a bigger impact on the country than any other politician in living memory. Whether you love him or hate him, he is hard to ignore, and local journalists are in a far better position to go after the former PM and challenge him over the way he ran the country.

Then there is the total absence of debate over the monarchy, still an immensely influential institution. We are all sensitive to the genuine affection and respect millions of Thais feel for King Bhumibol Adulyadej, but how is it possible to figure out what kind of political system is best for the country without discussing what role the monarchy plays now in the balance of political power, and what role it should play in the future?

It isn’t just foreign journalists who should be asking these questions; they are surely of far greater importance to Thais, yet no one dares ask because of the stifling blanket of the sweeping lese majeste laws. How does His Majesty’s ‘Sufficiency Economy’ concept, emphasising, as I understand it, moderation and greater concern for the poor, fit in with the Crown Property Bureau’s ambitious re-development plans for its extensive landholdings in Bangkok, which included closing down Suan Lum night market and replacing it with yet another massive shopping mall?

These apparent inconsistencies seem to me and my colleagues to be screaming out for discussion. What role, if any, did concern over managing the succession play in the decision to launch the coup? Just how much is proximity to royal prestige used to sustain the old bureaucratic and business elite, and with it one of the world’s most unequal distributions of wealth? How much did resentment over that inequality play in giving Mr. Thaksin such a strong support base in the countryside? Our editors, our readers and viewers demand coverage of these important questions, as they would of any other country, yet that is hard to do if they are simply not being discussed at all by people in Thailand.

In the eleven years I have been working in this region, this is the first time I have been confronted with such profound and intriguing questions, and yet have felt unable to pursue them. Even under the repressive media climate of Suharto’s Indonesia it was a whole lot easier to report contentious issues there than it is to report anything but glowing praise for the Royal Family here.

One of the great privileges of covering countries going through periods of political upheaval is the opportunity to witness a great debate about where the nation will go; an uninhibited debate which should be led by the local media, by activists and academics, a debate over which the reporting of foreign journalists should have only marginal influence. As things stand in Thailand right now, there is a danger for all foreign journalists that they will inadvertently find themselves taking the lead in that debate, provoking hostility which will then distract people from the real issues that confront them.