EYE ON ETHICS

The Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) first published this report on Dec. 9, 2008.
_____________________________________________________________________

Excessive use of defamation and lese majeste charges by opposing political groups and authorities in Thailand to curb free expression on the Internet has forced a coalition of Internet users comprising media reformers, human rights campaigners, webmasters, bloggers, and operators of online news publications, to form a civic network called the Thai Netizens Network, designed to promote and protect cyber liberty.

The non-partisan group, officially launched on Dec. 2, was a spin-off of an earlier initiative called Freedom Against Censorship in Thailand but its mission is much broader than its predecessor’s—that is, to campaign at the national policy level to promote and protect netizens’ rights, freedom of online media as well as civic journalism, and at the same time to promote a self-regulatory framework to ensure responsible use of internet.

According to the network’s coordinator, Supinya Klangnarong, about 400 URLs have been banned over charges related to criminal defamation and lese majeste pending the court’s hearing. “The problem is that cyber-crime police find it difficult to proceed with these cases in court because they could not arrest the suspected offenders,” said Supinya.

More »

Mr. Basorie teaches journalism at the Dr. Soetomo Press Institute (Lembaga Pers Dr. Soetomo, LPDS) in Jakarta, Indonesia.
____________________________________________________________________

The Maluku islands and Central Sulawesi, two provinces in Eastern Indonesia, were hotbeds of religious conflict from 1999 to 2004. Some sections of the Indonesian press have been partly blamed for fanning communal violence between Muslims and Christians through biased reporting. Although the hostilities between the two communities in the two areas have been contained, friction can resurface. The challenge for journalists is how to enhance religious tolerance in these conflict-prone regions.

The Dr. Soetomo Press Institute (LPDS) in Jakarta, in cooperation with the New Zealand embassy, brought 20 journalists from Maluku and Central Sulawesi as well as from the provinces of West and East Nusa Tenggara to the Indonesian capital Aug. 2008. In a four-day exchange, they shared experiences, hopes, and ideas on the appropriate approaches in reporting conflict and in helping to maintain interfaith harmony.

The practice of peace journalism was duly discussed. Traditional war journalism focuses on the conflict between warring factions but gives insignificant attention to the innocents caught in between. Peace journalism departs from this. It analyzes the conflict and explains its history in its political and social context to allow the public a deeper understanding of the conflict. Further, peace journalism also emphasizes the plight of the victims and the senselessness of the conflict. The intent of such reporting is to stop the conflict and bring peace.

More »

The author is a recent journalism graduate.
_______________________________________________________________________

Journalists are either the most passionate or the most masochistic individuals on earth, preferring to live the hectic and stressful life of deadlines and controversies instead of simply going with the flow.

I remember writing this line when asked by my school paper to come up with welcome remarks during our paper’s anniversary. That was no less than six months ago, when I still believed that journalism is all about passion and dedication to the truth.

After less than half a year covering the business beat, I have finally seen the ugly side of the trade. The corruption in the media my teacher used to warn us about apparently has many faces, and I have seen most of them in my beat.

I remember a conversation I had with a fellow business reporter on why people choose to stick with journalism despite the low pay. According to her, the “veteran” reporters choose to stay for two reasons: either they have already gotten used to the job (the flexibility of time and workplace) or because they simply can’t live without the perks.

More »

Mr. Anderson, born in Olean, New York in 1944, is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad and a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965 to 1967. At the time assigned to a community development role, he then worked in Thailand as a freelance writer and TEFL teacher before transferring to Iran and Saudi Arabia with his Thai wife. He founded northeast Thailand’s first local English language newspaper, The Korat Post. He also writes under the pen name Brian Knight.
________________________________________________________________________

A society that claims to have draped itself around a religion now two and a half millennia old is bound to be somewhat—what is the word?—inflexible when it comes to self-analysis.

Indeed, Buddhism, the religion Thailand adopted so long ago, admonishes what some of its masters call a “passion for analysis and discussion.” This is a perfect fit for Thailand’s social value system that generally encourages obedience, acquiescence, feigned acceptance, repetition, and overall, a lack of innovation or legitimate inquiry.

Buddhist tracts perhaps unintentionally point out a fallacy by stating “If people are ignorant they cannot reason correctly and safely.” To the non-Buddhist-trained mind, this latter statement undermines the very doctrine of teaching as viewed in the west—to wit, that the ignorant really cannot be informed. As an extension of this, there is an implication that teaching of Buddhism per se would be rather fruitless as those ignorant of the Buddha’s admonitions and lessons could not safely or correctly analyze the material contained in the teachings of the Wise One. The assumptions are perhaps a perfect fit for a country like Thailand that is so steeped in deep patronage the very idea of reform, and not just in media ethics, is tantamount to attacking desired reality. And yet the conflicting, contradictory and confusing laws and regulations relating to seemingly all aspects of Thai social behavior scream for immediate redress.

More »

Mr. Guda is the editor in chief of Pinoy Weekly, a Philippine magazine which discusses and analyzes issues that affect citizens especially the marginalized.
_______________________________________________________________________

Mainstream. In the beginning, that was all we wanted to be. This is not an unreasonable goal for aspiring journalists, especially those who came from journalism schools and the campus press in the Philippines. To be mainstream is to reach a wide audience, to be heard or read by an entire country, even the world. To be mainstream is to gain respect, admiration, prestige, even a following. To be mainstream is to make a name for yourself.

“We” in this case refers to fellow journalists in our little journalistic project called Pinoy Weekly. It was 2002, and the country had just undergone a tumultuous first year with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. A handful of small entrepreneurs wanted to put up a publication along the lines of the defunct Pinoy Times. But this time, they wanted it to target the C-D readership—the tabloid-reading public.

We wanted to be mainstream, but not really for anything other than wanting to popularize our advocacies. When we started, our composition was a curious mix of youngsters and veterans.

More »