THAILAND: For Media, Instability Brings Economic Pinch

By Lynette Lee Corporal

BANGKOK, Nov 21 (Asia Media Forum) - The Thai media industry will face a tough time making ends meet if the long drawn-out political turmoil in this South-east Asian country is not resolved soon.

   This, in a nutshell, is what David Armstrong, president and chief operating officer of the publishing company of the English-language daily ‘Bangkok Post’, sees in the coming year as political instability continues to simmer given the tensions between the elected government and protesters who want it out.

   For several years now, the Thai political scene has been dominated by the tussle between the incumbent government and the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), led by elite groups in the Thai capital who say elections have brought on bad leaders and argue that the elected government is but a replacement for ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his disbanded political party.

   While acknowledging that the media have a "big problem with politics" in the country, Armstrong said these woes are not so much related — at least for now— to freedom of the press but rather to financial concerns.

   "Political instability brings uncertainty among consumers. In these circumstances, the first thing to suffer are corporate marketing and advertising revenues," Armstrong, who is president and chief operating officer of Post Publishing Co PCL, told a packed crowd at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand earlier this week.

   In its 2008 mid-year economic review, the 'Bangkok Post' stated that "consumer confidence fell in April for the first time in six months" owing to, among other things, political instability, rising oil prices and high cost of living.

   According to a Nielsen Media Research Thailand study, total advertising spending decreased by 1.4 percent from January to April.

   Rising to 33 percent in 2004, total advertisement spending on newspapers went downhill after that. Citing official records, Armstrong said that ad spending fell by 8 percent in 2005, fell by another 5 percent in 2006, increased a bit in 2007, and this year rose by 8 percent.

   The rising cost of newsprint is also giving media outfits a headache. From 550 U.S. dollars a pound a year ago, this rose to just under 900 dollars a pound in mid-2008, he added.

   "A study done in the United States this year found that financial pressures have led to (newspapers) having fewer pages, lower paper quality, less international and national news, reduced business coverage, and so on," he said.

   "I hope this is a fate we can avoid in Thailand," added Armstrong.

   The fact that another print media group — the Manager Media Group, which publishes 'Manager Daily', 'Manager Weekly' and 'Manager Monthly’ — has fallen into dire straits is a reflection of the slump the Thai media are in right now.

   On Nov. 20, The Manager Media Group declared that it has failed to implement its business rehabilitation plan. The media group's debts are about 3.9 billion baht (111.26 million U.S. dollars).

   The two leading English-language dailies, 'Bangkok Post' and 'The Nation', have a combined circulation of just about 100,000 daily, given the small English readership. Thai-language papers such as 'Thai Rath' and 'Matichon', meanwhile, enjoy a circulation of one million and 400,000 respectively.

CONFLICT WITHIN

   Contributing to these economic woes is the general perception that the government is out to curtail press freedom. In a conference graced by local journalists here earlier this month, journalists once again raised the issues of pressure, intimidation and self-censorship.

   "The Thai media are still working under the principle of fear and favour. It is difficult for both activists and journalists to criticise both the PAD and the government," said media activist Supinya Klangnaron, secretary-general of the Campaign for Popular Media Reform.

   In August, PAD protesters occupied and barricaded the government station, National Broadcasting Service of Thailand, injuring some journalists in the process. Meanwhile, journalists critical of former Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej were subjected to a tongue-lashing by the outspoken former leader.

   But media also have to be critical of themselves, according to ‘The Nation' newspaper senior reporter Pravit Rojanaphruk. The local media have a lot of problems within its system, especially when it comes to self-censorship.

   "One of the problems of the Thai media is the lack of democratic structure within its organisations. Very few media organisations would accept diverging views between editorial and its owners," said Pravit. He added that newspapers "are too partisan to be trusted" and that majority of the local media are "indebted to either side" of the political tussle.

   Looking at the complexities and nuances of Thai media, Armstrong said: "People in the media complain about verbal abuse from politicians, but this kind of intimidation is common in many countries. The real intimidation here is sometimes more subtle.”

   In particular, he pointed out some journalists’ inability to "distinguish between pressure, which is unpleasant, and interference, which is not legitimate".

   Looking back, he said the Thaksin government created "some genuine intimidation and interference in the operation of a free press". For instance, he recalled how it launched an investigation of its critics' -- journalists included --  financial affairs, used highly restrictive defamation laws to silence opponents, and worked on the withdrawal of government advertising from newspapers critical of the former prime minister.

   In contrast, he said, newspapers and magazines after the September 2006 coup that unseated Thaksin have been generally untouched.

   "The print media and magazines were free to report news and comment on politics and the government. (Former prime minister) Samak (Sundaravej) might not have liked it very much but, as far as I know, he didn't interfere with the print media. We did see some occasional phone call asking why we put out a particular story, but that is the amount of pressure that we got (and not interference)," explained Armstrong.

   Samak, who became prime minister in December 2007 in the wake of the first general polls after the September 2006 coup, was ousted from power in September this year after a court found that he had violated a ban on earning extra income. He had been the subject of public protests by the PAD, which called him a proxy for Thaksin.

   Ironically, Armstrong added, Thaksin's changing of the rules of the political game inadvertently led the Thai print media to be "more free than before to report the news and express their opinions".

   Explained Armstrong: "Politics and news media have an intimate relationship and in this intimacy, the relationship will tend to run hot and cold. They both need each other." (END/IPSAP/AMF/LLC/JS/211108)