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The First Amendment and a free people a weekly examination of civil liberties and the media in the United States and around the world. The program has produced cooperatively by WGBH Boston and the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University the host of the program is the institute's director Dr. Bernard Rubin. This edition of The First Amendment and a free people is coming from broadcast studios recorded in Bangkok Thailand. And we're revealing some more viewpoints on the press and communication in general. My guest I'm very happy to say is a former official of the Thai television company prior to joining the British Broadcasting Company Thai service in London for several years. She is the current director of the Tyne news agency and information service under the mass communication organization of Thailand. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree and Master of Education from corn University and a
master's degree from London University in Dishan. Every morning from 6 to 7 she does a radio program in Thailand which provides the news current affairs and a general idea of what's going on in contemporary life. She also does interviews on TV and on her radio program every Saturday morning here in Thailand. She devotes it to the International Year of the child which is a very worthy cause. This is. Let me ask you first why do you do that I'm I'm so sympathetic to it but why do you devote Saturday mornings to the International Year of the child. Well because I believe that this yeah which is the International Year of the child we should do something to stressed children. And because Thailand is that a developing country still there are so many things to be towed about how to raise the
children how to. You know what to do in life and how to make the children you know benefit from this. Yeah. And it's not only the children who need information but the doubts as well. So as for the general purpose and the greatest audience in the world is the children audience for our hopes and our dreams and the progress we want to make as human beings and that audience sometimes lost and so to reach them we have to reach the adults often. And not only that in our program we devote part of the program to tell our stories for the children because you know we believe that nowadays patterns are so busy they don't even have time to tell bedtime story for children any longer and they don't even have time to read stories you know themselves so that they have some to tell the children. So we have to
give them some stories you know for them to tell the children so that the children have something to listen to when they go to be to turn to the news developments in Thailand and the way news is delivered in Thailand. The center of the country in all intellectual way is regardless of the find other centers which have notable assets. I was into my in the chain my in the northern part of the country delightful town market center and so on is Bangkok Bangkok with its five million plus people. It is burgeoning city. The Thais are a developing country. They have many many poor people they have 80 percent of the people on the rural land. Tell me what do you think are the main issues that face journalists in Thailand if they do their job well.
Whether they're government journalists or private journalists I think they should really inform the people. You know nowadays I think that the press has done so much of them criminal news and not sufficient to have issues. You know I think what they should do is to be to tell people off what to do you know how to develop that Lanza had to fight them too. You know I've arranged for a new developments introduce new technology in there. Would you say that the press has in the past we used the word criminal I do mean sensational. Yeah. That they've been involved in sensational news. Typically what does that consist of. News about crime and
not some you know sort of accidents accidents girls being raped and you know they concentrate on things like that. Now that the popular demand for this must be great if they keep providing this but what I believe is that the press shouldn't serve the people. According to you know sort of the level of the people. I mean it's not as if we are selling food to the people. I mean you know we should give them information which is just useful and fruitful for them as well. You know I have been reading two papers because I don't read Thai every morning that I'm here in Thailand. Necessity I read the nation and the Bangkok Post. Now these are secured to a different audience completely than the average high newspaper. Yeah. What would the average time newspaper provide. That is the nation and backup very much different from that
foreign oriented. Yes very much so. But you know from that tiny newspaper if you read Thai newspaper. And if for example you tie people abroad if you have foreigners abroad who can retire you would think that Thailand is sort of in a chaotic situation because you would find absolutely nothing but criminal issues and sensational news you know. But you know the selection the choice of news I think is very much different from the nation and Bangkok Post is very much emphasis upon superficial political news as well. In the type papers Chinese papers type papers what do you call it by superficial the glossy a ministerial statement the speech about national development that everybody's heard a hundred times before that. Does does the time newspaper in any language that is printed in probe.
Does it get beneath the surface or does that skim the surface. Oh yeah surely some of them especially them lead leading article you know that each newspaper is minus a practical man very useful. But apart from the lead article they have very very few articles on news items which I think useful enough. Let's take a specific story for example currently as we're talking the boat people the Vietnamese refugees are one of the big stories around the world. Here in Thailand it is a special problem not only the boat people but the Cambodian refugees there are so many horrible things happening on the WWW that affect the frontiers of Thailand. It is quite popular in Thailand now to be against the boat people or to to look at our national interest not not to be sentimental against them as refugees of this great feeling for them. But there is some sentiment that we can't do much about and so on does the
press probe a story where there is as so much emotion in the country. Well I think it is something like this for example if you have a piece of cake or a piece of Braid a loaf of bread in your hand and you see it of course you are generous and somebody else coming along and see it now and I'm hungry Could you give us could you give me a piece of bread of bread. We would say yes of course we give him a piece of bread but if 100 people came along and said we are hungry can we each have a piece of Raid. We would have nothing to eat. You see this boat people and land people who are flocking into our country. Then they came in and they're hungry. And what did what they did was. You know being hungry they cut down our trees they eat fruits they
slaughter cattle those and you know that even come and stay in our own land. You know even in our most using our own homes so well we want to be sympathetic and we are sympathetic but you can't imagine yourself if you're if you you know sort of a living quite peacefully in your own land growing a field. Through trees and suddenly out of the blue one hundred people much you know a thousand people much you know and they cut down your trees to you know to eat your food and to eat your fruits and come and ask for the rice that you have in your house to sought to down your house and. Peaks and you know so you feel that you are overwhelmed. Now this this is a feeling that is quite generally felt in Thailand that the country is being pushed by international events and so many things are crowding in upon it. Do you think the world press is sympathetic to
the actual situation as you read the world press. Well I think they don't really understand the situation in Thailand because they stray so much on the boat people and even the conference in Geneva recently. There's just so much on the boat people that as we are in trouble with the land people you know who are coming in. And this time is the rainy season so the fighting in Cambodia I think is sort of in the loud state for a while but after the rainy season when it's dry season again. About we in Thailand believe that the fight continue. And then a hundred thousand of people again flocking to our country. And what are we going to do about this. Now I notice a story showing. I'm trying to stress to the American audience that there are various viewpoints and I'm glad that you brought out the sentiment of the Thai people is also reflected in a story that appeared yesterday here in August of
1999 of the Princess Royal of Thailand greeting at a special party one hundred eight Cambodian refugees boat people refugees who are going to West Germany whose parents have been killed or are thought to be dead to be adopted and to be housed in foster homes and so on. And despite all of the feelings the true sentiments of the Thai people came out in that expression as well did it not. Off course as I said before we are really sympathetic you know really think of well. If you were in the same situation if we really had to go away from our country in a rush and if there is no way to go you know it would be a really terrible situation. This is a pity is it not. In the 30s and today there is no place for so many people to go. They cling desperately to rafts into boats and everybody is in that boat. Let me turn to another subject and that is the subject
of concepts of freedom of the press as seen in Thailand. I don't want to be leading you Mrs. Hilary but if you hear the Americans come and talk about freedom of the press or the British What's your reaction when you say this is what freedom of the press means to me in Thailand this is what it means to us this is what we expected to be. How would you define freedom of the press. In terms of time needs and your own views I don't know what you would say. Freedom of the press in America. But in Thailand I think they still use it in a very much different to him of a very much different sense because they believe that freedom of the press means they can write anything and absolutely anything. You know be thout being touched by anyone by the government by the censor people. You know anyone at all. So they think they have an
influential but I think for me personally I think that freedom of the press means that they should be free to express themselves but they should have their own self-restraint and responsibility. Not not that they can write any thing at all. Now when you say they write anything at all without getting into specific stories or if you want to do so. What kind of story goes across the line crosses the border into no man's land. In my idea your view. Well I think for example do you think when they go into the private lives off the VIP you know ministers and color them with you know call them my epitaphs dirty names and their cartoon and all that. What's some of what are some of the other things that they might do that crosses the line for example to criticize government policy is that all right.
Oh I think that's all right at least. Even the duty of the newspaper is to criticize you know to be a watchdog for the government or to be them. Mira for the government. But there is some good mirror a distorted mirror. How does it work now in Thailand. The newspapers are independent. By and large they are privately owned privately owned but their licenses can be revoked by the government. That's right. How often does this happen in the say in the space of a year. Well only one newspaper you know. I came into trouble but only because they used a sort of rude language in connection with the government. You mean they say you shocking shocking adjectives and adverbs to describe government officials. That's right. I don't think it's done in your country. I have heard that you may criticize the government
quite freely on many subjects so long as you don't personalize it that the government gets anxious when you personalize it. This is the fact. Well that's true and you know if you used bad language or rude language. I don't think that it's very nice that a newspaper run Thailand has been through several stages in regard to its concepts of freedom of the press in recent decades and there have been various levels of greater freedom and less of freedom. What do you think the future holds Do you think that governments are getting more used to a press which if responsible has more leeway. Or are governments successive governments usually tend when it comes to jabs from the press. I think governments tend to be more reasonable with the press and I think they. They have a tendency to India
depressed much more than before. They have asked for so called cooperation by you know to suppress by for the press to become them. You know the Mira you know to become the watchdog for the government in its true sense and to criticize in a positive way in a constructive way and not simply to not simply to you know sort of just think of government as doing absolutely nothing good with the Thai people. In your view of professionals and journalism ever be sympathetic to a guarantee of the press. What guarantees is the press now have under the Thai government rules or constitutionally. Well I think the press has a lot you know. Normally it's not the practice of the government to
interfere you know to interfere with the press Atar they just let the press do anything they like almost anything they like and to go and do it. I think even criticism from them from the people in general that the government has given too much freedom to the press. I listen to the radio on the radio is very interesting it's not much of a national development radio so it was largely music. And interesting programmes of an entertainment nature. I of course would like to listen to the news but since I have only an AM FM portable I hear only the Pips. As you hear in England pip pip pip pip and then it comes on in Thai but I notice that when it does come on in Thai on the radio everything else goes off the radio and there is one voice delivering the news. Don't you think that reduces credibility when the radio for a whole country comes through as one voice on every station. Shouldn't there be shouldn't have been versions of the news original
versions and or shoe or are you sympathetic to this blanking out of everything else for one voice now. Well actually it's not exactly like what you described. Probably because you as you said yourself without listening to the Thai language. Because we have three or four times a day. That's you. You know every radio station must get news from radio time and it's just governmental. That was you know sort of. My governmental policy is that people should know the sort of news that they should be informed. But the radio stations every need every radio station has its own news time. For example some stations may have news that one news every hour on the hour every hour on them quite a locally prepared news.
Yes that's right. And now television is a little easier the television stations make their own news formats. Do they know it. How does how does that work. Please the government. Is that mostly from the government supplied information those television news programs. No not particularly but well as I said well we have different sort of news we are interested in them. You know because I've got. Meant government as well. I might be also interested in sports and current affairs and general news you know General events as well. How good are the journalists in doing the major job in a country that has 80 percent of its population in rural areas how good are they in reporting I don't know. Rural facts rural life bring to the nation the importance of rural developments for the press the press and general all all the newspapers and magazines they have that one page you know a peach color to a rural page and that page you know
every newspaper has and that page concentrates on news from the real kind. Are you satisfied that because I've been traveling through the developing world and I find that the same charges made against the First World News imbalance to the third world in my view prevails in the Third World News imbalance from the urban areas to the rural areas that not enough is coming out of the rural areas. That's why I'm not off. I feel a. Institutions are doing this for example. My own tiny agency. What we have been trying to do is to get news from the rural area to come into them you know. We have a section which is called rural news bulletin and you know we have this every day three times a day. We concentrate on you know on our own news and not only that but for the government as well or they have their own you know their farming and new new center
which concentrates on little news items sending from you know all parts of the country apart from this little page of them every press. If I would ask you a question what is the most interesting news to people in Thailand. Would you agree with me that it is news from the hacienda area and then from the region rather than from the rest of the world. You are right. That's why the Chinese agency had signed an agreement with the other three news agencies that that is Philippines news agency and Daraa often uneasy and off them. Relations Manisha. Now Singapore has no news agency yet U.S. So all four of us are trying to exchange news ourselves. And this we believe will make the news flow among us easier and you know we have Mr.
Some people have said that in the north south debate between the developing countries and the highly developed in technology I must stress in technology because we all have the same social problem and we're doing very poorly around the world. In regard to this technology that the the only way that third world stories will come to the First World is if they start getting written by Third World reporters and Third World reporters are not really doing enough to fill the news wires in the other direction. You think that's a valid complaint about who would receive us. Well I think the statements made by some of the directors of the Associated Press and people like that is that they would receive any good story and they and I have noticed more and more third world stories in the first world press as the sensitivity increases to the third world complaints. But there's also the feeling that there isn't still an imbalance in source.
Yes but for example in Thailand Thailand U.S. agency would be very willing to give you know to supply news to the first mode. Well if you find difficulty getting accepted. Well for a samurai thing is this. We are doing it in a different way. You know because Thailand is tiny you since you are very new. Agency set up only two years ago but as you know we subscribe as often as say international news agencies. They wouldn't subscribe to us. So now how can we supply them if our news and they're not interested in. In other words you're leveling the charge that you subscribe to them they won't subscribe to you. Right but it seems to me at this time of of the debate over news flow that you could really make that as a demand that you want to have a reasonable reasonable subscription made for Thai news services.
Yes because you know I think this is a real debate. You know the intergovernmental conference in Kuala Lumpur in February this year after the conference stressed very much on the imbalance of the flow between you know that vote and the First World countries. But as we said you know we have. Thai news agency undoubtably anonyma Philippines news agency and other news agencies you know in the third world countries. If the international news agencies on the big premise in the first world would be interested to get the news from us you know we would be very much meaning to supply them with the news items from our point a few which we believe would be also justice. And where would you carry news items from the daily newspapers in your country for example and move them on the international wires as well as government news.
Well we have reporters you know and we supply news for the local newspapers a smell. And I think we get the news from newspapers. We supply the newspaper the newspaper story our news you say that you're reading and you want the customer to buy the news. That's right and this is true of the of the group surely. And do you think that you can move enough news to use that word transport enough news in the day to meet the requirements if they say we want to buy. Well it depends on the requirements. You know what kind of requirements we produce news 100 news items a day. Could you give them the in-depth stories. Surely yes. Hundred words 500 words thousand words even you could do that. Yes and you have to stand for it. Well I asked office about a hundred. Do you think it's enough. Well out of the hundred how many are good writers and and field reporters. Well we have I think sufficient and need at the
moment you see. And so if the focus from the first but would like to at least give us a start give it a start you know I'm sure that people at least supplied sufficient news items you know from the beginning. Well we're making history today because we're notifying Associated Press United Press International Reuters Archons France press and so on that we've thrown the gauntlet down. The challenge is now in their court and we'll see what happens to Thai news agency at least in Thailand. Yes and Bernama is ready in Malaysia. Yeah. Of course you'd have to increase your staff and you'd have to develop a larger organization it would be a very exciting period for you if you if the other side wanted to move news. I think that we're on the verge of that. I really do because I've been talking to people like stance Winton and others directing these giant new services and they say that they are willing to do almost anything to prove good faith and I think that's the policy of the United States government as well. At least the you know school meetings in Paris last year and so
on that was the policy. Mystery country. It has been a great great pleasure talking to you and to have you on this program reflecting Asian viewpoints. I seen in Bangkok Thailand and Thailand general for this edition. Burna driven. The First Amendment and a free people a weekly examination of civil liberties and the media in the United States and around the world. The engineer for this broadcast was Barry Carter and the program is produced by Greg Fitzgerald. This broadcast has produced cooperatively by WGBH Boston and the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University which are solely responsible for its content. This is the station program exchange.
Series
The First Amendment
Episode
Rural Journalism
Producing Organization
WGBH Educational Foundation
Contributing Organization
WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/15-84zgn7sx
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Description
Series Description
"The First Amendment is a weekly talk show hosted by Dr. Bernard Rubin, the director of the Institute for Democratic Communication at Boston University. Each episode features a conversation that examines civil liberties in the media in the 1970s. "
Created Date
1979-08-17
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Social Issues
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:48
Embed Code
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Credits
Producing Organization: WGBH Educational Foundation
Production Unit: Radio
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WGBH
Identifier: 79-0165-12-20-001 (WGBH Item ID)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Generation: Master
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Citations
Chicago: “The First Amendment; Rural Journalism,” 1979-08-17, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-84zgn7sx.
MLA: “The First Amendment; Rural Journalism.” 1979-08-17. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-84zgn7sx>.
APA: The First Amendment; Rural Journalism. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-84zgn7sx