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dam-l LS: Media needs to jettison its biases

http://www.bangkokpost.net/160300/160300_News37.html

March 16, 2000 


Commentary 

Media needs to jettison its biases 

Sanitsuda Ekachai 

Village leader Boonmee Sopang has a question. Why do news reports on the
Rasi Salai dam nearly always parrot the official line by projecting the
protesting villagers as crooks hungry for compensation money? 

Some basic inquiries could easily debunk these allegations and expose the
conflicting interests between the Democrat and New Aspiration parties, he
said. They would also reveal that Rasi Salai started on the blueprints as
only a small dyke, obviously to avoid an official impact study. Field
visits and interviews with villagers would show how the dam has destroyed
the environment and people's livelihoods. 

``I don't understand why the media does not think these facts are
newsworthy enough to report,'' he wondered. 

Mr Boonmee is not alone in his frustration. Complaints of media bias are
growing louder. Environmentalists and grassroots leaders complain about the
media's unquestioning belief in fast-track development with little concern
for the impact on nature and the poor. 

Rights groups are unhappy with the media's perpetuation of the cultural
stereotypes and prejudices that reinforce a system of oppression. 

Women, minority groups, slum dwellers, immigrant workers, the handicapped,
homosexuals, Aids patients, and former prisoners suffer their fair share of
media bias. 

Rights groups also criticise the media for its addiction to violence, which
results from class-based definitions of newsworthiness. If you have status,
anything you say makes news. But if you are poor and powerless, you won't
get media attention until you do something odd or violent. 

The farmers' movement knows its members' plight won't make news until they
take to the streets, burn effigies or play defiant. But without insightful
explanations of these events by the media, the farmers' movement comes
across as aggressive. 

``I don't understand why the media operates this way,'' said Mr Boonmee. 

The Thai press, given its history of private ownership and struggle against
military rule, prides itself on being the upholder of freedom and justice. 

Strangely, it dismisses civic groups that voice concerns as cry babies. But
they're not. In the globalisation era, the policy-making authority of
national governments isn't challenged just by transnational conglomerates
and global rule-making institutions _ but also by an expanding civil society. 

Why has the media failed to see this? It's too simplistic to blame it on
commercial interests alone. Of equal blame is ingrained discrimination
against the poor, a narrow definition of media objectivity and
newsworthiness, traditional news beats, and news hierarchies that have
evolved around old power centres in politics and business. 

That's how the mainstream media has become the voice of the establishment,
a phenomenon seen around the world, not only in Thailand. Also seen around
the world is public demand for the media to take moral responsibility. 

At home, public leaders and academics are joining the expanding circle of
media critics, lending them an authoritative voice. Witty, resourceful and
well-researched writings by academic heavyweights such as Prof Nithi
Eawsriwong and Kasian Tejapira make mainstream journalists look like
students who haven't done their homework. 

If anything, the ``News that Didn't Make News'' project to select important
news items deemed undeserving by media bias and the setting up of the
People's News Agency are a wake-up call for the mainstream press. 

If the press continues to play deaf, it risks losing credibility _ its sole
source of legitimacy. If it doesn't shape up, the growing civil society
will find alternative sources of meaningful information _ a choice now made
easy by the Internet. 

By the time the press wakes up to the new reality, it may be too late. 

Sanitsuda Ekachai is Assistant Editor, Bangkok Post. 

sanitsuda@bangkokpost.net   




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Aviva Imhof
South-East Asia Campaigner
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley CA 94703 USA
Tel: + 1 510 848 1155 (ext. 312), Fax: + 1 510 848 1008
Email: aviva@irn.org, Web: http://www.irn.org
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