Matichon’s guide to the Thai newspaper | 21.08.06

Note The draft below is no more than 20% finished. Of the dozen of points I intend to make in ascending order, I’ve managed to write only four most benign ones. It is posted now only because I won’t return to work on it any time soon and what little it contains now may be useful for interested readers.

The italics below was written the last time I worked on the article in February.

This article is more than five months late. Given the recent pace of Thai politics, that might seem like a different century to some. But it isn’t. The conclusion will make clear that what you read below is directly, if not immediately, linked to the situation we have today.

Since I wrote this post on and off (mostly off) over five months now, most of the examples cited will not be current. All of them, however, are representative of Matichon newspaper today. The conclusion will make that clear, too.

It ended almost as it began, but GMM Grammy’s short-lived takeover bid for Matichon Group did achieve what I had thought was impossible. It got the international media to pay attention to a Thai-language newspaper.

“The country’s most respected newspaper,” the BBC pronounced Matichon Group’s eponymous flagship daily. AP was just a tad more circumspect with its description — “the most popular serious broadsheet” — and added that Matichon “generally takes a liberal political line”. Reuters lauded vigorously its “reputation for integrity and investigative reporting over its 28 years of existence” and — perhaps even more vigorously — its status as “a thorn in the side of Thaksin’s government”. Financial Times went the furthest, gushing about not only Matichon but also “its sister business newspaper, and its weekly news magazine”, all three of which “have long been at the forefront of serious political and investigative journalism in Thailand, with a reputation for integrity, and incisive analysis.”

Somehow I got a feeling that the Bangkok bureau chiefs of these outlets have never read Matichon, but at least they’ve heard of it now.

And now that they have, who knows which Thai paper will next vault into international fame by the virtue of belonging to a takeover target, firing an editor, or getting sued for libel? Surely we want to make certain the international media know something about the Next Big Rag before they cover it. After all, it’s in nobody’s interest to have such august purveyors of truth look like blistering suckers again.

So here’s a brief survey of the Thai newspaperdom, as embodied by our perfect specimen, Matichon. Not all the dictums below are foolproof, although some indeed are. Rest assured that any exceptions will be of the kinds that prove, not refute, the rules. At any rate, we are extrapolating from the best, are we not? Who can complain about being overrated? Matichon was certainly not doing that.

Thai newspapers don’t carry mastheads

Wondering who are the brains behind Thailand’s “most respected newspaper”? If you are, implausibly, talking about Matichon, then you’re out of luck. Scour the newspaper and you’ll find only one name associated with any position in the newsroom. And that’s if you have a sharp eye, for it’s buried in the one full-length line at the very bottom of page 15 (the main section’s penultimate page).

[IMAGE]

What the line says its entirety:

บริษัท มติชน (มหาชน) เจ้าของ นายสุวพงศ์ จั่นฝังเพ็ชร บรรณาธิการผู้พิมพ์โฆษณา สำนักพิมพ์ 12 เทศบาลนฤมาล จตุจักร กทม. 10900 อาคารมติชน โทร. 0-2589-0020 อัตโนมัติ 70 สาย โทรสาร 0-2589-5674 0-2590-0559 (Email Address matichon@matichon.co.th)

Matichon Public Company Limited, owner; Mr. Suwapong Junfungpetch, Editor-Who-Publishes-Advertising; Publisher 12 Tesabal Naruemol, Chatuchak, BKK 10900, Matichon Building; Tel. 0-2589-0020 70 Automatic lines; Fax 0-2589-5674; Distribution 0-2590-0559 (Email Address matichon@matichon.co.th).

[Translated by yours truly.]

“Editor-Who-Publishes-Advertising” is actually a misleading term of art. The position is known to insiders as the “go-to-jail editor”, who will be sued along with the newspaper and the offending author in case of a libel suit, but that’s misleading, too, since no editor has ever gone to jail in recent history, much to my chagrin. Besides, it tells us nothing about his everyday responsibilities. When I called up Khun Suwapong to find out, his first answer was “be responsible for the newspaper’s legal issues,” legal issues, of course, meaning libel suits. I pressed for information, particularly whether or not he is the editor, but was stonewalled. I learned nothing new from our phone conversation other than that there was at lease one other editor above him in the newspaper hierarchy (more about that guy later). All in all, Khun Suwapong sounded, despite his evasiveness, like dispensable small potatoes, which is probably why they make him, you know, Editor-Who-Publishes-Advertising.

Thai newspapers publish no bylines or datelines

There is a compelling reason for this as we shall see very soon, but it isn’t quite to protect the intrepid Thai journalists, “investigative” or otherwise.

There are some exceptions to this. Once-daily feature stories in __Matichon__’s lifestyle section carry the author’s names, as do most commentaries and columns (although in the latter case, the names are sometimes pseudonyms).

Still, when Matichon’s own staff, or even Matichon Group’s staff, write an opinion pieces in the paper, their positions are never revealed. A case in point, I learned only after this takeover brouhaha that Tagoon Boonpan (ฐากูร บุนปาน), whose commentaries appear every once in a while in Matichon, is the Executive Editor of Khaosod, Matichon Group’s no-holds-bar sensationalist rag. (In comparison to Khaosod, Matichon may indeed be considered “serious”.) While it was apparent from his last name that Tagoon had some familial connection with Matichon founder Khanchai, I didn’t know Uncle actually put him in charge of an entire newspaper already. It was all based on merits, of course. (The guy is pictured in this AP article shaking hands with the suited Grammy COO, Sumeth Damrongchaitham, who is himself Paiboon’s nephew. AP notes only the latter connection.)

Thai newspapers report the WSW (who said what), not the 5 Ws

Who? What? When? Where? Why?, answering these questions is the foundation of a journalism. Elsewhere. In Thailand, this front page lead from the June 26, 2005 issue of Matichon exemplifies political news reporting.

ส.ส.ปชป.ให้จับตาไฮไลต์ซักฟอก
เส้นทาง “สินบน”
ทรท.เย้ยแค่ “เล่นปาหี่” ไร้ทีเด็ด

โฆษกยันอุ้ม “สุริยะ”เป็นมติชัด
นายกฯไม่ดู “ลอร์ดออฟเดอะริงส์”
ส.ว.แฉเหตุรบ.ไม่ทำจม.ผ่านอัยการ
หวังเลี่ยงสนธิสัญญา-เบี่ยงทุจริต

“แม้ว” ไม่มีเวลาดู “ลอร์ด ออฟ เดอะ ริงส์” ให้ชวน”ป้าอุ”ไปดูดีกว่า ยันไปฟังแน่ซักฟอก”สุริยะ” โฆษก ทรท.สวนหมัด “สุธรรม” ย้ำอีก “พรรค-วิปรัฐบาล” มีมติไว้วางใจ รมว.คมนาคม หยาม ปชป.ไร้ทีเด็ดแค่ปาหี่ตลาดนัด อวดอ้างว่าจะมี “เลือดสาด” ด้าน”ศิริโชค”เผยทีเด็ดถล่มซีทีเอ็กซ์อยู่ที่การเปิดโปงเส้นทางเงิน ลั่นงานนี้ “ลอร์ด ออฟ ซีทีเอ็กซ์” ส.ว.ตาก แฉเหตุ รบ.ไม่ทำ จม.ผ่านอัยการสูงสุดเพื่อสอบถาม ก.ยุติธรรมมะกัน เพราะต้องการเลี่ยงสนธิสัญญาและเกรงว่าสหรัฐจะคิดว่ามีความผิดเกิดขึ้นแล้ว

Democrat MPs say to watch highlight of scrubbing
“Bribe” trail
TRT scoffs as only “smoke and mirrors” without punches

Spokesperson insists backing “Suriya” is clear [party] resolution
PM doesn’t watch “Lord of the Rings”
Senate exposes why Govt doesn’t draft letter through attorney general
Hopes to evade treaty, divert corruption [charges]

“Maew” has no time to watch “Lord of the Rings”; says better to ask “Auntie U” to go instead; insists [he] will certainly go listen to “Suriya’s” scrubbing. TRT punches back; “Sutham” insists “Party, Government whip” has a resolution to give vote of confidence to transport minister; sneer Democrat lacks trump card, just Sunday market’s smoke and mirrors; boasts there will be “blood”. “Sirichok” in turn reveals the CTX trump card is in exposé of money trail. Tak senator exposes reason government doesn’t submit letter through attorney general to Murcan’s justice department, because [government] wants to evade treaty and fears US will think crime has already been committed.

A quick backgrounder for those of you fortunate enough to be unfamiliar with the Thai politics. “Scrubbing” means censure speeches by the Opposition. In this instance, Transport Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit was being censured for allegedly taking a bribe in the purchase of airport scanners from CTX Corporation. The governing TRT made a resolution in advance of the “scrubbing” that it would support Khun Suriya, but not without dissent within the party. “Maew” is PM Thaksin’s nickname, meaning Hmong. “Auntie U” refers to Culture Minister Urawai Thienthong, whose husband, the party’s estranged senior advisor Sanoh Thienthong, was leading a handful of party rebels. Apparently Sanoh or one of his underlings was comparing Thaksin to the bad guy in The Lord of the Rings. Or something. “Murcan” (มะกัน) is, of course, this “respected” daily’s preferred moniker the United States of America.

If this whole extended headline doesn’t seem to you like a “serious” newspaper material, I say, who are you to question AP’s characterization?

This Who Says What doctrine applies to all “news” reports, not just political ones. Take, for instance, this article headlined “Longan-for-Chinese-locomotive barter project fails” (โครงการลำไยแลกหัวรถจักรจีนเหลว) from the economy section’s front page on Thursday (September 29, 2005, I was writing this in the same week). Everything in that report comes straight out of the mouth of Director General of the Cooperative Promotion Department. Despite the 12-column-inch space it occupies, the article actually consists of only three Thai-journalism–length sentences. The first begins with “Mr. Boonmi Chantarawong, Director General of the Cooperative Promotion Department, revealed that…”. The second begins with “Mr. Boonmi said that…” The third is a direct quote from Khun Boonmi.

In the aftermath of the airport experts hoax, interim editor David Armstrong’s criticized Bangkok Post reporters for spending “too much time, energy and space on recording and recounting the statements of various officials”.

I should suggest the Post follow the trail blazed by Matichon, the big name in investigative reporting according to Reuters and the Financial Times, and expand the stenographic approach to the ever obliging babble rousers from the “academia” and the “People Sector™”

Thai newspapers don’t follow the inverted pyramid, or any other writing structure

How on earth Thai newspapers organize their news into coherent articles when the Who Said What doctrine leaves no room for any input from journalists? Well, they don’t. News writing for Thai newspapers is chucking together snippets that bear the remotest connection (many times, that means no connection at all). These snippets are stringed together (or rather severed apart) by what Thai journalists call “subheads”, which at first glance may look similar to the bite-sized phrases in standard journalism that help move the reader along in a longer article (e.g. “Best Year Ever”, “‘Don’t Need a Husband’”, “Missing Korea”, and so forth in this Washington Post article — if you know what these are called, gentle reader, please do tell). However, whereas those bite-sized phrases are mainly decorative and can be taken out without any significant damage to the story, the Thai “subheads” are needed to keep the article from becoming a jumbled mess. As the remotely-connected (some would say randomly-connected) snippets are usually very short (three paragraphs max), the “subheads” are more frequent besides.

Take a look, for example, at this off-lead from the June 26 issue of Matichon.

[IMAGE]

The front-page headline reads:

ประกาศรัฐอิสระปีหน้า
สื่อฝรั่งประโคม

อ้างข้อมูล”ฝ่ายมั่นคง” ไทย
“แม้ว” ให้อดทนสู้พวกบ้าคลั่ง

“ทักษิณ” ยอมรับสถานการณ์ไฟใต้รุนแรงขึ้น ระบุช่วงนี้บ้าคลั่ง เหลืออดคนร้ายฆ่าคนบริสุทธิ์ ด่า “อีกหน่อยไม่มีใคร มันก็ฆ่าพ่อฆ่าแม่มันแล้วล่ะ” ลั่นยังรับมือได้ ไม่มีถอย

[South Separatists] To declare independent state next year
Farang media plays up

Cites information from Thai “security official”
“Maew” says to have patience in fight against fanatics

“Thaksin” admits southern violence situation getting more severe; says now fanatical; fed up with perpetrators killing innocents; lambastes “soon when there’s nobody [left], they’ll be killing their own parents.”

Turn to page 14, in the long article under the heading “Farang Media Plays Up” that extends about half a page, you’ll find the following “subheads”:

• “แม้ว” ยอมรับไฟใต้แรงขึ้น-บ้าคล้่ง
• ไม่รู้นราฯ ประกาศ 4 อภ. พื้นที่ฉุกเฉิน
• ด่าคนร้าย “อีกหน่อยมันก็ฆ่าพ่อแม่มัน”
• “ชิดชัย” เล็งซื้อเครื่องตรวจระเบิด
• ยุชาวบ้านแสดงพลังชี้ประณามไม่พอ
• นายกฯ สั่งล่ามือยิง ผ.อ. ร.ร. ให้ได้
• รู้ตัวมือยิงผอ. ร.ร.-คนเผาหุ่น “แม้ว” แล้ว
• สำรวจฐานทหารถูกโจมตี 3 จุด
• ผวจ.นราฯ ยัวะข่าว “เคอร์ฟิว” มั่ว
• ดักยิงอดีตด.ต. ดับคาสวนยาง
• คนร้ายยิงถล่มชรบ. ยะหาดับ
• ศธ. เร่งจัดตลาดนัดปืนมือสองให้ครู
• เผยมีฝึกเยาวชนกู้เอกราชปัตตานี
• “สุรยุทธ์” ให้รัฐเพิ่มเข้าใจ-เข้าถึงมากขึ้น
• “อัมมาร์” ชี้คนใต้งงรบ. “คุ้มดีคุ้มร้าย”
• ไม่เห็นด้วยให้ปัตตานีเป็นมหานคร

• “Maew” admits southern violence more severe, fanatical
• Doesn’t know Narathiwat declares four districts emergency area
• Lambastes perpetrators “soon they’ll be killing there own parents”
• “Chidchai” prepares to buy bomb scanners
• Goads villagers to flex muscles, points out that [they] do not condemn [insurgents] forcefully enough
• PM orders to hunt down gunman [who killed] school principal
• Identity of gunman [who killed] school principal now known
• Survey of military base [finds] three ambush attacks
• Narathiwat governor chafes at false news about “curfew”
• Ambushed shooting killed former police sergeant major in rubber plantation
• Perpetrator rains bullets, killing Yaha’s Village Security Team [member]
• Training of youth fighters for Pattani independence revealed
• “Surayuth” tells state to increase empathy, accessibility
• “Ammar” points out Southerners confused, govt. “erratic”
• Disagrees with giving Pattani metropolitan status

Okay, I should admit that some of those “subheads” are actually related. Yeah, that happens every once in a while. The first three are all from PM Thaksin’s pronouncements on two occasions about southern problems, the next three are from an interview with Police General Chidchai, and the last two are from the same seminar, although the guy who “points out” isn’t the same as the one who “disagrees”. Still, if there’s a logical connection among the three Who-Said-What’s, and between them and the ragtag rest of the “subheads”, the Matichon news writer doesn’t make it. He just assumes they all fall in the one all-encompassing subject called “southern violence” (or “southern fire” as the literal translation of “ไฟใต้” would be). One reason a Thai-newspaper article doesn’t carry a byline is that it’s not really an article, but a unorganized pile of Who-Said-What’s from reporters covering various beats in different places, each of whom contributes two and a half paragraphs’ worth on average.

Readers of Thai newspapers can vouch for me that I’ve picked quintessential and commonplace examples, not exceptionally bad ones. Indeed, growing in Thailand, I was conditioned not only to condone this travesty of news writing (or indeed writing of any kind), but also to expect it. For most of my college years in America, I would pick up a copy of New York Times lying around in the cafeteria, glanced through an article, and hated it! This can’t be news, I thought. It reads so much like… like a story!

Thai newspapers write headlines that exaggerate, mislead, and make things up out of nothing at all

If you paid attention to the example in my last point, then you must be asking yourself whatever happened to the “farang media” and the talk of the “independent state” of Pattani. Well, that part is covered by the very last “subhead”, which I deliberately omitted in order to make this point. Here’s the subhead and the content below it in full — no more, no less:

[IMAGE]

สื่อนอกแฉมีเป้าตั้งรัฐอิสระปีหน้า

วันเดียวกันสำนักข่าวเอเอฟพีได้อ้างว่าได้รับการเปิดเผยจากเจ้าหน้าที่ด้านความมั่นคงระดับสูงซึ่งไม่ขอเปิดเผยชื่อของไทยผู้หนึ่งระบุว่า สาเหตุสำคัญที่ความรุ่นแรงใน 3 จังหวัดภาคใต้เพิ่มขึ้นสูงขึ้นมาก เป็นเพราะกลุ่มต่อต้านรัฐบาลในพื้นที่ตั้งเป้าจะประกาศแยกตัวเป็นรัฐอิสระในปีหน้า

เจ้าหน้าที่รายดังกล่าวบอกกับเอเอฟพีว่าทางการเชื่อว่าถึงตอนนี้มีแกนนำคนสำคัญของกลุ่มต่อต้านหลงเหลืออยู่ประมาณ 40-50 คน ซึ่งทางเจ้าหน้าที่ต้องเร่งจับกุมตัวให้ได้ก่อนที่คนเหล่านี้จะบรรลุเป้าหมายในการประกาศจัดตั้งรัฐอิสระในปี 2549 อย่างไรก็ตาม เจ้าหน้าที่ผู้นี้ปฏิเสธที่จะระบุว่าเป็นกลุ่มใดและผู้นำเหล่านั้นมีชื่ออะไรบ้าง

เอเอฟพีระบุว่า เหตุรุนแรงใน 3 จังหวัดภาคใต้ของไทยเพิ่มระดับความโหดร้ายมากขึ้นตามลำดับ โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งในเดือนนี้เมื่อมีการฆ่าตัดหัีวหรือพยายามฆ่าตัดหัวเหยื่อมากถึง 7 ราย ในเดือนนี้เดือนเดียว ขณะที่ 17 เดือนที่ผ่านมามีเพียง 3 รายเท่านั้น.

Foreign media exposes plan to establish independent state next year

The same day AFP news agency claims to have received a revelation from a senior security official who asks not to be named that a major reason that violence in the three southern provinces has greatly increased is because [of] the groups opposed to the government in the area that aim to secede and declare [the three provinces] an independent state next year.

The official told AFP that the authorities believed that there are now about 40 to 50 core leaders of the insurgents left, whom officers have to arrest quickly before they accomplish their goal in declaring an independent state in 2006. However, this official refuses to specify which group [that is] and the names of those leaders.

AFP reports that violent incidents in Thailand’s three southern [border] provinces have progressively escalated in brutality level, especially this mouth with as many as seven beheadings or attempted beheadings in a single mouth compared with three in the past seventeen months.

[Translated by yours truly]

That’s it. That is all that the big fat white-on-read front-page headline is based on. If you compare the spaces occupied by the front-page headline and by the actual report, you’ll find that the former is about twice the size of the latter. And this very headline, you will recall, accuses the AFP of playing up the story.

(By the way, notice the beheading figures that Matichon quoted the AFP as reporting. Don’t you find it curious that a local newspaper — and a “serious” and “respected” one at that — should have to quote an international news agency like AFP for information that should be relatively easy to look up? Wonder no more, AFP had to take the initiative and came up with those numbers by itself without anyone spoon-feeding it. Matichon is inherently, physically, intellectually, and culturally incapable of that, so it took AFP’s spoon-feeding. Who-Said-What, remember?)

* * *

And that was all I had time for. From my notes, the points that remain to be made include: no fact-check, no correction, no letter to editor, no ombudsman, yes tabloid headline, yes gross distortion of wire reports, neither liberal nor conservative, no commitment to freedom of speech, think alike but Matichon quite pro Thaksin (didn’t see this one coming, eh?)…

If you can read Thai, you can find some materials (all of which from Matichon) that would have been included as examples in the following posts: ประวัติศาสตร์จะไม่ซ้ำ, จับบุชได้เอ็นจีโอ, and คนไทย 600 ล้านคน

15:51 ▪ media

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