When the military is on top IV

Military dictatorships only like media they can manipulate. Military dictatorships want to control the news. Censorship is their modus operandi.

Thailand’s military dictatorship is no different. The Dictator has shown, time and again, that he hates the media because it sometimes does not do as he wants.

Thailand’s military dictatorship wants to censor everything. It thrives on censorship. Its minions seek out material to censor in the media, on the internet and in private conversations.

The military dictatorship’s latest effort to control news is reported in the Bangkok Post. This effort is led by the mass media panel of the puppet National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA).

It has drafted laws that will require that any person the state deems to be a “reporter” “will be required to have a licence to do their jobs or face a jail term up to two years or a fine not more than 60,000 baht, or both…”.

In true Orwellian style, Pol Maj Gen Pisit Pao-in, the deputy chairman of the panel said his committee named the revised bill as being about “the protection of rights and freedom and promotion of ethics and professional standards of mass media…”.

It is really a dictatorial regime’s effort to limit rights and freedoms and has absolutely nothing to do with professionalization or ethics.

The dozy Pisit compared journalists to “traditional massage service[s]” in needing to be licensed.

He also explained who this bill was meant to silence. He noted that “licensing shouldn’t be a problem with old media — newspapers, radio and TV — but it won’t be easy with new media.”

Defining “reporters as those who have the intention and continuity in reporting news to the public and earn direct or indirect revenue from doing so,” the bill is meant to censor blogs, alternative news sites and “websites such as Sanook.com, Kapook.com or news apps on Line platform…”.

Maj Gen Pisit stated that the opposition of all “mass media organisations” – “against the bill, against licensing” – counted for nothing. He has a job to do for the dictatorship.