The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand held the “Regulating the Media in Thailand” panel last night.

The bill on media, proposed by the National Reform Steering Assembly, will set up a media council comprised of some 13 members, which would include a couple of ministerial permanent secretaries. The council will be authorised to issue or revoke the yet-to-be-invented media licence.

Thepchai Yong, president of the Thai Broadcast Journalist Association, has led 30 media organisations in a fight against the bill draft out of concern that it would allow political powers to interfere in media affairs.

“Permanent secretaries should be held accountable by the media, but this law will allow them to hold the media in check instead,” Thepchai said.

“Most of my colleagues believe that the junta is trying to extend its hold on power, so they need some legal instrument to silence criticism,” he continued. “They need a legitimate tool to ensure their hold on power, once democracy is restored.”

The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commissioner Supinya Klangnarong dubbed the bill “Empire Strikes Back” law, obviously taking inspiration from the “Star Wars” film series.

“Over the last couple of decades, people have been wanting to make society more progressive and democratic, but then came [political] crises,” Supinya said. “The media has also been blamed for being distorted, lacking ethics and hurting the public sentiment.”

This explains why some people tend to no longer believe in the media and choose to support the junta government instead, she said. “But this new bill will discourage everyone,” she added. “The media is now fighting with both the government and public sentiment.”

Pirongrong Ramasoot, a communications academic from Chulalongkorn University, said that while there are scores of media organisations in the Kingdom, their self-regulatory mechanisms are rarely practical.

“Many of them merely copy each others’ codes of ethics and claim they have self-regulatory organs,” she said. “However, in fact, very few consumer complaints have landed in their hands, raising questions about whether such mechanisms are truly effective.”