Press Freedom & Lack Thereof

‘Bangkok Post’ sacking leads to call for interim editor’s head

Published on August 30, 2005

In an unprecedented move, about 100 reporters and editors at the Bangkok Post yesterday demanded the resignation of the newspaper’s interim editor, David Armstrong. The move followed the paper’s editorial staff’s dissatisfaction with Armstrong’s decision to fire a news editor after the paper earlier this month published inaccurate reports on runway cracks at the new Suvarnabhumi Airport.

The reported was retracted the day after it was published.

However, the paper subsequently faced lawsuits from Airport Authority of Thailand and NBIA.

News editor Sermsuk Kasitipra-dit, who was sacked by Armstrong yesterday, said he would take his case to the Labour Court.

The editorial staff’s bitterness and recrimination centres around Armstrong’s tough action against Sermsuk. The paper’s management earlier pressured another news editor, Chadin Thepaval, to resign over the false reports.

Yesterday, some 50 members of the paper’s editorial staff – who dressed in black to display their dissatisfaction with Armstrong’s “severe” punishment – gathered in front of the interim editor’s office in a bid to ask him to review the decision, but got no response from him.

Bangkok Post reporters and editors then issued a statement urging the company’s board of directors to remove Armstrong.

“As editor, Armstrong [who earlier worked for the South China Morning Post] also needs to show his responsibility for the mistake,” they said in the statement, which was signed by 103 journalists, photographers and other editorial staff – more than half of the paper’s total 200 editorial workforce.

“Chadin and Sermsuk did make the mistake at a certain level and deserve punishment, but that should not be as severe as being fired,” a staff member said.

Another staff member said: “Our point is that Armstrong has avoided his responsibility. So we demand his full responsibility.”

Sermsuk said at a briefing at the Thai Journalists Association after being fired that he would fight his dismissal in the Labour Court in order to help protect other journalists from being threatened and mistreated by controlling shareholders of mass-media firms.

“The management has treated me unfairly. I have worked here for 22 years,’’ he said.

“Normally, the editorial department would not handle this kind of mistake in this way.

“I should be allowed to defend the paper in court [following the legal action taken by the government agencies]. Instead, they fired me even before the court trial begins.

“I’ve accepted that there was a mistake, but it was based on the good intent to scrutinise irregularities in this controversial airport project.”

According to Sermsuk, he and Chadin were blamed and faced serve punishment due to outside pressures, including government pressure, because the paper has adopted a strong editorial policy over the past two years.

Armstrong said in a statement yesterday that the two news editors had committed a major mistake, and so he had to take strong action to maintain the paper’s journalistic standards.

“This was not a simple mistake. The number of errors and misjudgements in the lead-up to the publication of the story was so great that firm action was both justified and necessary,’’ he said.

“A responsible newspaper cannot tolerate lapses in standards of this magnitude.”

Armstrong added that it was understandably an emotional issue for the paper’s staff.

Kamol Sukin

The Nation

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WHo has the ultrasound equipment to find the *$%# cracks?