At the forum on human rights violations by the media – held by Amnesty International Thailand in Bangkok – a plea was made to journalists to have more respect for the rights of their sources.

Participants were told that producing news only to get a larger audience harms the rights of sources and does not improve society.

Sangkama Sarawat, professor at the Information Communication Technology Faculty Silpakorn University, said that the current trend and common strategy of Thai media is to sell everything that appeals to the public, regardless of the newsworthiness and impact on sources.

“There are many examples of the irresponsible news reporting, such as repeating the wrong social norms or violating the privacy and confidentiality of news sources, which cast a negative impact on both news sources and society. But many media organisations still continue this wrongdoing for the sake of news popularity,” Sangkama said.

“The media have the power to set the agenda for society, so they should carefully select the stories to be published, as journalists have a duty to be investigative and question public interest issues.”

She suggested that the media should focus more on being a proper social watchdog and work on comprehensive and unprejudiced news reports to push for social improvement. She added that journalists also have to be careful and respect the sensitivity and confidentiality of news sources, as a report can drastically damage their reputation and cast a negative impact on their life.

Ticha na Nakorn, the director of Baan Kanjanapisek Juvenile Vocational Training Centre, said that a shallow news report leaves a stigma on sources and does not improve society. Ticha used as an example the case of “Moo Yong”, the teenager who drove his car into a crowd of people several years ago. She said he was one of the victims of rights violation by the media, because the media portrayed blamed him without digging deeper into the motive and driving force that made him commit his crime.

“The media only portrayed his dark side without bothering to investigate the reasons why he committed the crime and the public remembered him as criminal, who cannot return to be a good person,” she said.

“Actually, when I talked to him, he showed me his bright side, that he felt guilty about his crime and wanted to be ordained as monk to do a good deed for the persons that he killed. Moreover, if we look into his family and childhood, we can see that his behaviour was a product of violence in his family.”

Ticha said journalists should have wider vision to investigate the problem at its root and question the system in order to alert the public about the real problem and push authorities to improve their systems and policies.

“Journalists have to look deeper at the issues and have to refrain from blaming the individual for their bad behaviour. Instead they should question what kind of system and society makes them commit crime and try to push forward for improvement by reporting quality news,” she said.