News Stories

[stumonster]

How heavily are news stories on thailand filtered.

Last week I saw on the thai Tv news that about 6 mobile phone towers in the south had had their electrical cabling set on fire - I didn't see any other mention of this only one quick excerpt on television.

This afternoon on television they showed a video of a shooting that happened in a government office in Nong Khai - I have not see this incident mentioned again.

Do stories get dropped for image reasons often?

[phuketsiam]

oh yes

[slimdog]

How heavily are news stories on thailand filtered.

Last week I saw on the thai Tv news that about 6 mobile phone towers in the south had had their electrical cabling set on fire - I didn't see any other mention of this only one quick excerpt on television.

This afternoon on television they showed a video of a shooting that happened in a government office in Nong Khai - I have not see this incident mentioned again.

Do stories get dropped for image reasons often?

Whilst I am sure some stories do get dropped for "Image" reasons, it is also a dilema for many news organisations, both in thailand and throughout the world to decide how much publicity to give to an illegal act who's primary purpose is to get publicity for a particular cause. Regardless of what they decide to do, the news organisations are probably going to get some flack.

[sriracha john]

Lots of news is filtered, particularly on the governmental-controlled television news...

good thing we have our "own TV news" to fall back on....

such as:

The South On Fire Thread

Edited January 23, 2006 by sriracha john

[FreedomDude]

Do stories get dropped for image reasons often?

Check the back page. There's probably a 2 or 3 sentence story about a bus accident that killed 10-20 people. Nothing significant, really.

[Oishi]

How heavily are news stories on thailand filtered.

Last week I saw on the thai Tv news that about 6 mobile phone towers in the south had had their electrical cabling set on fire - I didn't see any other mention of this only one quick excerpt on television.

This afternoon on television they showed a video of a shooting that happened in a government office in Nong Khai - I have not see this incident mentioned again.

Do stories get dropped for image reasons often?

Could be...but there are other factors to consider.

Looking at the printed news a lot of them had the story. So it could mean a matter of resources. It is after all a lot easier to write a story based on phone calls or wire, than sending out a News crew, shot, edit, link back to Bangkok.

I would guess most of the Thai broadcasters have a regional office in the south, or at least some freelancers to deliver those kinds of stories or photos.

But regarding the story in Nong Khai it could be a question of being there at the right moment and the wrong time.

Now if it was a matter of “image protection” it was a poor attempt since Thais also reads newspapers and they had the story from the south.

Television is a very strong media…if it has the pictures to follow the story.

The printed media is however strong on one particular subject.

You can report without pictures, you need at least one source or even better two sources to confirm your story and that’s it. Your readers will trust you; they have done so for years. If you where to block any bad reports coming out of the south, what would you do? Well you could easily spot the guys with video cameras and the guys with still cameras but who are eyewitnesses and who are journos in the crowd?

The only way to censor a story like that is to talk with the high level editor staff.

And if you do that you have exposed yourself and you might even give more...pardon my expression…blood to the story than necessary.

But they didn’t because if you take a quick look on Google News and use the words mobile and Thailand you will see the story from newspapers and online media in Jamaica, Japan and even the local MCOT. The only thing different from the local angle of the story and the ones in the international news is that the international news ends the story with a line telling that more than 1200 people have been killed in the south of Thailand so far.

But I will still give you the benefit of doubt because in this country where press freedom is as rare as snow in Yala, everything is possible.

[Jai Dee]

So it could mean a matter of resources.

All of the news stories posted on ThaiVisa are in English. All of the Thai News agencies do need resources to translate their information into English to publish for their limited (when compared to the Thai population) readership. Most of this translation work is done by the Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department.

Now if it was a matter of “image protection”

I think this is probably fairly close to the truth too... Thais in general are not inclined to "air their dirty laundry" in public, and I wouldn't expect the Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department to be any different.

[elkangorito]

From what I've seen of Thai television & newspapers, they are crap!

The newspapers, excluding Bangkok Post & The Nation, are full of mindnumbing moronic mush like fatal car accidents, complete with 'blood & gore' pictures & the garbage gossip about Thai TV stars etc. Oops, almost forgot...sport to the nth degree. Three fifths of five eighths of bugger all else.

Thai TV is the same, plus you can add endless hours of gameshows for the braindead (complete with those idiotic 'sound effects' that went out of fashion at about the same time as 'Get Smart' came into fashion).

I'm sure the Thai government love this. If a government can keep people dumb, the people will be less likely to cause trouble. "Thinking" & "informed" people are troublesome. For example, look at how the yanks try to keep their people "dumb" (CNN & the likes). Thank god for the internet.

Funnily, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC...an Australian government TV & radio media institution) has a show called 'CNNNN'. It's a rip-off of the yank CNN. The catch phrase is, "The news we want you to hear, went we want you to hear it".

Edited March 4, 2006 by elkangorito