If passed into law, the media would be subject to various legally-binding mechanisms including a national media professional council, which they fear could lead to interference from political and business interests.

The professional associations also said they would develop their own alternative version of regulatory measures for lawmakers to consider.

The bodies at the meeting included the Thai Journalists Association (TJA), the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association (TBJA), the National Press Council of Thailand (NPCT) and the News Broadcasting Council of Thailand (NBCT).

“We agree in principle that there should be more effective media ethics regulation mechanisms in place, but we do not agree with the idea to establish them legally binding, especially the idea to set up a lawful national media professional council to regulate the media,” TBJA president Thepchai Yong, who is also chairman of the Working Group for Media Reform, said.

“This could leave a loophole for political and business entities to interfere with the media’s work, which ultimately would affect the people’s right to information.”

The associations plan to submit the letter to the committee chairman, Air Chief Marshal Kanit Suwannete, on Thursday to express their thoughts on the draft bill regarding media ethics, professional standards, rights and freedom.

Thepchai said the associations would also inform the NRSA committee that a working group had been set up under the media associations to draft a new law on media regulation, which would be proposed to the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) in the future.

TJA president Wanchai Wanmeechai said after the two-hour meeting that the media organisations agreed they could accept regulation of the media on two levels.

One was that the media organisations would be generally regulated by the professional associations, and the other that organisations would regulate their own reporters or personnel. But they could not accept the professional council because of possible interference from “outside forces”, Wanchai added. “So the bill that we will write will include mechanisms based on self-regulation while excluding the professional council.”

The development came after Kanit’s committee earlier this month held a discussion over the draft bill, during which representatives from the media associations exchanged viewpoints regarding the draft.

According to the draft, a media professional council should be established to oversee media practices and to encourage media organisations to adhere to standards and ethics written in the draft.

Membership would be applied along with regulation via implementation of agreed standards and penalties. The council would be partially funded by the state, receiving at least Bt50 million each year from the finance ministry, as well as public donations.

While draft advocates argue that the bill would help to protect press freedom, the media associations are concerned that their independence, rights and freedom would be undermined by the professional council.

MAJOR MEDIA organisations will meet today to discuss a joint stance on the media regulation bill proposed by the National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA). It appears that they could issue a joint statement in opposition to the bill.

The Thai Journalists Association (TJA), the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association (TBJA), the National Press Council of Thailand (NPCT) and the News Broadcasting Council of Thailand (NBCT) have all said they disapprove of the draft bill and associated media council. They say the legislation would open the door for intervention by outside forces into the media, such as politicians and financiers.

Wanchai Wongmeechai, president of the TJA, told The Nation: “The bill says that any media organisation can join the council and have a chance to regulate the media. But what’s worrying is any

one can set up such organisations very easily.

“Any politicians or financiers can just form a company and then seek membership with the professional council.”

The media industry response came after the NRSA met with media networks last week over the bill. The proposed media council would regulate media organisations and supposedly protect press freedom.

A source on a subcommittee under the committee tasked with media reform admitted that there was still debate over what form the bill should take.

“The media demand independence. But on the flip side, some people call for it to be regulated. So, it is not easy to balance these two,” the source said.

The source said the media council should be advantageous for the media and the public.

“The public would benefit, as the media would be more responsible for what they report. On the other hand, the media would benefit from the protection and promotion of rights and freedom provided by the bill,” the source said.

Key players within the media, however, fear the council would undermine the independence of media organisations instead of promoting it. Most veteran journalists on leading media associations insist that self-regulation is the best option for the industry.

Southeast Asian Press Alliance executive director Edgardo Legaspi said that the bill would be used to control the media. He said journalistic principles state that the media must be free from interference and must enforce its own ethics.

TJA’s Wanchai said the industry had always regulated itself through mechanisms such as issuing statements to warn or to call for troublesome media organisations to be held responsible for their reports.

“We never neglected any action by the media when it exerts a negative impact on the public or does something professionally unethical,” Wanchai said.

“There are also other existing mechanisms to help regulate the media including those of the NBTC [National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission]. So, the new bill is unnecessary, redundant, and will only overlap with what we already have.”

But advocates of the bill argue that it is necessary as the media had failed to govern itself.

Veteran journalist Pattara Kampitak, a former president of the NPCT, said that media self-regulation needed much improvement, but stopped short of suggesting what should be done to revamp mechanisms governing the industry.

Jumpol Rodkamdee, a mass media and communications scholar and a former member of the now-defunct National Reform Council (NRC) which initiated the bill, argued that media self-regulation had not worked and poor professional ethics and standards had often hurt public interests.

“The public one way or another is every day affected by the media which reports news with poor ethical standards and without responsibility,” he said.

The academic said that the media should review itself. If it had been effective in regulating itself, the bill would not have emerged, he added.

As a member of the NRC’s sub-committee that drafted the bill, he claimed that media associations had agreed a bill to regulate the media industry should be written.

“This bill did not emerge only out of the intention of the NRC. We talked to the media and many involved parties and stakeholders before kick starting it. The NRC should not take the blame for this,” Jumpol said.

The scholar dismissed the argument that media independence would be undermined by the implementation of the bill. He said that without a proper law and regulations some media outlets had been influenced by politicians and financiers. Press freedom and independence would be better protected and promoted by the controversial bill, he added.

Five media associations will meet today to discuss the issue and look at the proposed media bill drafted during the Abhisit administration.

Chavarong Limpattamapanee, chairman of the NPCT, said earlier the 2010 draft bill truly protected press freedom but was not enacted due to a change of administration. The associations said that the bill should be revived if a media regulation law was necessary.

The NRSA committee tasked with media reform got recommendations yesterday from media professionals in regard to the bill on protecting media freedom, while promoting ethics and standards in journalism.

The bill aims to regulate the media in the digital media landscape, which blurs the line between traditional and digital media, according to political observers.

But the bill has become controversial due to its proposed professional media council, which media professionals have rejected.

“We strongly disagree with the professional council enshrined in the bill, as it may be used as a political tool to influence the media,” said Wanchai Wongmeechai, president of Thai Journalists Association (TJA).

He said executive committees in the council might be exploited for the interests of particular political blocs.

He said media organisations self-regulate one another and the draft constitution endorsed in the August 7 referendum did not stipulate that there should be such a council to control the press.

Wanchai attended yesterday’s meeting with the media reform panel.

He said media bodies including the TJA, the National Press Council of Thailand, and the Thai Broadcasting Journalists Association would discuss this matter on Monday to counter the NRSA’s move.

Media organisations would push for a media protection law to be enacted at the same time in order to protect the press from interference by the “dodgy” council, if the bill was promulgated, he said.

Alongkorn Ponlaboot, the NRSA vice president who chaired the meeting, said yesterday’s media gathering was the final process to get feedback from journalists.

It comes a fortnight after two of its hosts, ML Nattakorn Devakul and Atukkit Sawangsuk, received 10day bans.

Supinya Klangnarong, a commissioner at the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, revealed on her Twitter account that the NBTC broadcasting committee voted three to one to back a request by the NBTC subcommittee overseeing TV content and scheduling to suspend “Wake Up News”.

While the remaining commissioners could not reach for comment, Supinya opposed the ban on the digital terrestrial TV channel because she believed the NBTC did not present Voice TV’s full report on the matter to her panel.

She said the punishment based on the content aired was debatable.

The action came after the NBTC subcommittee proposed the ban last week for the NBTC broadcasting panel’s consideration.

The subcommittee said Voice TV had on August 15 aired controversial content related to an interview with Pol Captain Chomdet Trimek about the recent bomb and arson attacks in the seven Southern provinces.

It said the station also aired controversial content about a political activist’s hunger strike on August 16 and on the charter amendment relating to the selection the prime minister, which the subcommitee deemed had been clarified by Meechai Ruchupan, chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee.

The subcommittee said the content violated the National Council for Peace and Order’s orders 41/59, 97/57 and 103/57, as well as section 37 of the Broadcasting Act and the station’s memorandum of understanding with the NBTC.

In response, Voice TV’s communications department issued a statement accepting the watchdog’s decision and said it would comply with the order.

However, the company said it reserved its right to engage in the reporting of news in a professional manner.

In a public talk deconstructing the media on Sunday at Thammasat University’s Tha Phra Chan campus, media experts and senior journalists discussed obstacles and limitations that have recently influenced the media.

In a discussion held by the Thai Civil Rights and Investigative Journalism (TCIJ) organisation, speakers challenged beliefs that messages presented by the mainstream media are either “true” or “reliable”.

Atukkit said the media is a tool of the middle class, which is dominant in the Central region of the country, who use outlets to mobilise the public.

“What topics the middle class is interested in will be in the news,” he said.

As a result, he said, middle class values and ideology pervade the mindset of the mainstream media.

“Thai middle class behaviour mainly is subject to consumerism, but their mindset mostly tends towards conservatism,” he said.

“That’s why ideas of conservatism characterised by goodness, nationalism and royalist loyalties appear in the Thai mainstream media.”

Mainstream media is also institutionalised, said Pirongrong Ramasoota, lecturer at the Faculty of Journalism of Chulalongkorn University.

News stories are “cooked” according to the attitude of each news organisation, she said.

She added that journalists rarely function as national watchdogs and mostly cover news according to advocacy interests rather than ideology.

Local media, she added, also consistently serves as state propaganda.

Supalak Ganjanakhundee, senior foreign editor of The Nation newspaper, said “filters” influence media outlets preventing them from independently functioning as a “medium”.

He addressed six filters including profit orientation, media sponsors, the selection of interview sources, the manipulation of information in which journalists present assumptions as fact, news organisations’ ideology and propaganda campaigns.

He added that in the digital world where social media plays an essential role and the audience can produce news, journalists who do not specialise – and instead jump to conclusions – will become obsolete.