Media Bribery Claims Must Be Urgently Probed; Thai Opinion

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EDITORIAL

Media bribery claims must be urgently probed

By The Nation

Allegations about 'rewarded' journalists undermine key pillars of democracy

The investigation into an allegation that some journalists received money from the Pheu Thai Party in exchange for favourable coverage of the party during the general election must be pursued in earnest and to its conclusion. Simply put, this scandal threatens the foundation of Thailand's fragile democratic system.

Last week, the Manager website publicised an e-mail which the paper claimed was leaked by a Pheu Thai Party source. The e-mail suggested that a Pheu Thai deputy spokesperson paid journalists Bt20,000 to ensure that positive coverage and images of Yingluck would receive more space in the media. In the e-mail, the party's spokesman claimed he had spent money wining and dining certain members of the press last month. The reporters were also named in the e-mail.

If this allegation is true, the reporters in question must be punished. The published e-mail explicitly suggested that the reporters were bribed, a suggestion that, if true, severely violates the ethical code of journalism. The allegation does not merely affect the reporters said to have been involved in the bribery, it also taints the credibility of the reporters' news outlets. And most importantly, the incident damages the credibility and integrity of journalism as an institution.

In fact, this alleged bribe has caused more damage to these news outlets than to the reporters involved, because the general readership will remember the names of the news outlets rather than the names of individual reporters, whom the e-mail mentioned by their first name or nickname.

On the other hand, if this e-mail turns out to be a fraud, the culprits must be brought out into the light. And the result of the investigations must be widely publicised so as to clear the names of reporters whose careers have already been affected because of the rush to judgement by many groups in society. All the time it remains unclear whether the bribery actually took place, the reputation of the reporters alleged to have received the bribe is tarnished. Thus, it is imperative for all parties involved to get to the bottom of what happened and find out if bribery has taken place.

In this regard, the National Press Council of Thailand's decision to investigate the allegation within 15 days was welcome. The council, the News Broadcasting Council of Thailand, the Thai Journalists Association and the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association last week issued a joint statement declaring that the allegation had impacted negatively on the media profession. It also set up a panel of respected members to probe the matter.

The press associations cannot let this allegation go unanswered, and neither can the news outlets that these reporters are attached to. Already, the issue has attracted strong public attention. For instance, social activist Dr Tul Sittisomwong called upon the media organisations to find the truth behind the allegation. "I don't know whether such an action [media bribery] is against any laws but it is improper," he said.

The Pheu Thai Party must also do more to reveal to the public what exactly occurred. An internal investigation should be conducted and anyone who is found to have been involved must be held accountable. The party earlier issued a short statement that did nothing to answer the questions regarding the incident. After all, it is illegal for a political party to offer bribes, and if there is truth in these allegations, a serious crime has been committed.

With the country so politically polarised, the media has found it difficult to perform its duty, especially during the election campaign. The media, both local and international, has sometimes been accused of being biased. Some media outlets have been charged with partisan coverage, of going easy on one political party while taking frequent shots at the other. In other cases, media outlets have been accused of featuring certain political parties more prominently than others.

Against this background, it is imperative for every party involved to uncover the truth and reveal it for all to see. This is a brewing scandal that affects the credibility of two main pillars of democracy - political parties and the media.

-- The Nation 2011-07-08

[pauljones]

Another slam by The Nation.

Somebody please tell them ...they lost the election.

The rulers can't win so they continue their campaign thru the crooked press.......

[caribbeanman]

with only 20000B you can buy one journalist??? wow this is a really strange situation, this journalist are risking their jobs, image and credibility for only $666!!! this should be a joke

[Gippy]

Surely you would have to bribe the editor and not a journalist. That would cost a lot more than 20,000 wouldn't it? The Nation is getting desperate.

[OzMick]

3 out of 3, it can't be true. PTP was bribing everybody they could think of, but wouldn't consider journalists because of their amazing level of integrity.

And around 2 months pay isn't enough - you know he just got here! Police will stand in the middle of a major road openly extorting B100 at a time, but a journo wouldn't accept a quiet B20,000 backhander. Jing jing!

One post does ring true - it's the Nation again - but which paper is the least likely to be targetted? One man's perk is a rort to the guy who misses out.

[whybother]

Another slam by The Nation.

Somebody please tell them ...they lost the election.

The rulers can't win so they continue their campaign thru the crooked press.......

So there wasn't any allegation of press bribery?

Do you think the allegations should be investigated?

[Artisi]

At the end of the day who cares, I'm sure that 99.9% of the Thai's couldn't care less and if they did nothing would ever come of it anyway.

[Samuian]

There are foreigners here which do believe that even far smaller amounts like this are alright to grease things up a bit and speed up certain prcessing.

In a country where one has to pay "tea money" to the post man to get a parcel that has been send to you and officialstaking financial advantages of their positions,nothing really is surprising!

[Jaivin2011]

If anyone says that the thai press cannot be bought......its a blantant lie....having run a PR business in this country for a while, I can say that the thai media is so bloody corrupted. They will accept small amts like even just 2 to 5 k to attend press conferences and ensure write-ups. The Business Sections of one of the English Dailies is the worsts, the reporters and editors there will never attend or cover a story unless they are paid.And even when they are covering stories of their affliate companies that are in the retail trade, they expect gifts etc.Now if anyone wants to dispute this, let me know as I had some stupid journalists sign on their copies of ID cards when they received payments from me.

Some of these business journalists even work like little mafia groups with freelancers among their ranks who will act as freelance PR Consultants and accept jobs from clients and share the booty among themselves while getting the clients the boycott the real and established PR Companies.

Then they are companies like the Dusit Hotel Bangkok, where the PR Manager does a lavish thank you dinner once a year for the press and shower them with booze and food etc plus gifts to ensure that they continue to give coverage to the hotel. These are attended by not only local press but also foreign and expat press including publications like TTO Asia, Thailand Titlers, etc. The PR Manager of that hotel was saying how cheap the Press Media was.

[Thai at Heart]

I don't quite see this as being a particularly serious issue.

People work for ASTV or Voice TV present stories and opinions that represent their political view. Newspapers choose to write stories for profit, that are acceptable to the editor and owner everyday. I would think, that if they saw that PTP was going to have a landslide, it would be rather smart to start writing nice stories about them, from a business perspective.

I would think it is far more dangerous to have ASTV of Voice continually reflecting opinion pieces as news, but at the end of the day, a newspaper editor puts the news in that he wants, to get sales, nothing more nothing less. Maybe the Nation didn't get invited to the meeting and missed out on their 20k donation.

Maybe they believe that the Chinese system is best where the state decides what opinions you should be allowed to hear.

[LomSak27]

Well Thai business has always been the Dems cash cow. The Nation is a business oriented paper. People have said they "get donations" too. All this makes the The Nation newspaper an unofficial expert on these matters.

[hanuman2543]

Who is the owner of the Manager website? Sondhi Limthongkul maybe?

[OzMick]

At the end of the day who cares, I'm sure that 99.9% of the Thai's couldn't care less and if they did nothing would ever come of it anyway.

So do you feel that this is tragic, or think that it is comical?

[rixalex]

with only 20000B you can buy one journalist??? wow this is a really strange situation, this journalist are risking their jobs, image and credibility for only $666!!! this should be a joke

Journalists in Thailand in the main, do not get paid very well, and 20,000 baht might be nothing to you, but not to them.

As for their image and credibility, perhaps if it is true, the reasoning as to why they might have felt this would not be badly affected, was because they weren't being asked to write lies, just simply give a bit more exposure and a bit of a positive spin on things. How much of a journalist's integrity would be lost by such an act is a matter people for each person to decide on.

[Puccini]

Last week, the Manager website publicised an e-mail which the paper claimed was leaked by a Pheu Thai Party source. The e-mail suggested that a Pheu Thai deputy spokesperson paid journalists Bt20,000 to ensure that positive coverage and images of Yingluck would receive more space in the media. In the e-mail, the party's spokesman claimed he had spent money wining and dining certain members of the press last month. The reporters were also named in the e-mail.

Another slam by The Nation.

Somebody please tell them ...they lost the election.

The rulers can't win so they continue their campaign thru the crooked press.......

pauljones, are you saying

a) that an employee of The Nation is the Pheu Thai Party spokesman who wrote the email, or

that an employee of The Nation leaked the email to somebody at the Manager website, or

c) that it was wrong of The Nation to publish an article about the claims made by the Manager website?

I am genuinely interested in figuring out what you mean.

[Suradit]

with only 20000B you can buy one journalist??? wow this is a really strange situation, this journalist are risking their jobs, image and credibility for only $666!!! this should be a joke

I haven't noticed ... maybe I missed it ... but is ThaiVisa covering the breaking news concerning the corrupt, incompetent press, government and police in UK in the world news section?

Politicians sucking up to the press, the police incompetent [or worse] investigation of phone hacking and the disgusting treatment of vulnerable people ... Rupert Murdoch is obviously above the law in UK and Cameron is either a congential idiot or complicit.

Friday, July 8th 2011 07:33

Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that a judge-led inquiry will be established to look into the phone hacking scandal.

The conference comes shortly after Ed Miliband called on Mr Cameron to admit his "appalling error of judgment" in hiring former News of the World editor Andy Coulson.

The Labour leader said the Prime Minister should apologise for bringing Mr Coulson into the "heart of government".

He also demanded that he come clean about the conversations he had with Mr Coulson before taking him on as his spin doctor.

And he laid down the gauntlet by insisting he must "lead the process for change" and launch an immediate judicial inquiry into the phone hacking scandal.

Mr Coulson became Tory director of communications in opposition and then moved into Downing Street when the coalition was formed.

He stepped down from his post earlier this year, admitting that the ongoing revelations about the newspaper meant he could not do his job.

Mr Miliband's call, in a speech in London, came amid speculation the tabloid editor will be questioned by police this morning.

The News of the World, Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper, has now been axed by Rupert Murdoch in a bid to stop the crisis growing still further.

The Labour leader admitted that all political parties have been guilty of cosying up to media bosses.

He said: "We must all bear our share of responsibility for that. My party is not immune and nor is the current government and current prime minister.

"All of this is difficult because of his personal relationships... Putting it right for the Prime Minister means starting by admitting the appalling error of judgment he made by hiring Andy Coulson."

Mr Miliband said the "full horror" of recent allegations about hacking by the NotW had "shocked and disgusted" the public.

He said the police investigation alone was not enough and called for a judge-led inquiry as well as a shake up of press regulation.

He said the system overseen by the Press Complaints Commission had "hopelessly and utterly failed".

"We need a judge-led inquiry to shine a light on the culture and practices of the newspaper industry, which needs to change," he said.

The Labour leader also insisted the Government has to change its approach on News Corporation's bid to takeover BSkyB.

He insisted the takeover should be referred to the Competition Commission, claiming there would otherwise be questions about fair dealing.

"I strongly urge the government to take responsibility and think again about how it is handling the BSkyB decision," Mr Miliband said.

[Artisi]

At the end of the day who cares, I'm sure that 99.9% of the Thai's couldn't care less and if they did nothing would ever come of it anyway.

So do you feel that this is tragic, or think that it is comical?

It is both, however (the bribing of Thai journalist) as bribery in all forms seems to be an accepted norm in Thailand it makes this article meaningless nonsense when compared to what is unfolding with The News of The World.

[OzMick]

At the end of the day who cares, I'm sure that 99.9% of the Thai's couldn't care less and if they did nothing would ever come of it anyway.

So do you feel that this is tragic, or think that it is comical?

It is both, however (the bribing of Thai journalist) as bribery in all forms seems to be an accepted norm in Thailand it makes this article meaningless nonsense when compared to what is unfolding with The News of The World.

right - everybody does it so it's OK. you do understand that this line of reasoning is morally repugnant, and somewhat childish. Did your parents ever let you off when you said "But little Johnny does it............."?

BTW so is moral equivalence.

Edited July 9, 2011 by OzMick

[hammered]

The Thai media never cared when Thaksin 2001-06 was telling them what they could and couldnt print under threat of massive libel cases, editor removals and even bizarre attempted takeovers of media groups. The Thai media never cared when various establishment groups were telling them what they could or couldnt print after a coup and few other shenanigan type governmental changes had occurred when even one of Thaksins biggest critics said it was media censorship on a scale beyond whatever Thaksin had managed. Now they find their independence all of a sudden. And of course if anyone thinks the Thai media affects the outcome of a vote they are utterly delusional.

Time for the entire Thai media to have a massive mea culpa about their years of kowtowing to whoever was in power, which of course is the real problem, and also why both red and yellow TV and other media outlets remain so popular. They may be heavily bias but you are more likely to get something true particularly truths powerful people want hidden than you are in the established media

[Artisi]

At the end of the day who cares, I'm sure that 99.9% of the Thai's couldn't care less and if they did nothing would ever come of it anyway.

So do you feel that this is tragic, or think that it is comical?

It is both, however (the bribing of Thai journalist) as bribery in all forms seems to be an accepted norm in Thailand it makes this article meaningless nonsense when compared to what is unfolding with The News of The World.

right - everybody does it so it's OK. you do understand that this line of reasoning is morally repugnant, and somewhat childish. Did your parents ever let you off when you said "But little Johnny does it............."?

BTW so is moral equivalence.

I am very well aware of the repugnancy of it all - but that wasn't the original discussion, I was simply pointing out that the majority of Thai people couldn't care less, so does that make you one of the Thai's who cares?

Edited July 9, 2011 by Artisi