BP confesses to being a fan of The Nation‘s Pravit Rojanaphruk for a long time. BP doesn’t necessarily agree with everything that Pravit writes, but in the seemingly one-dimensional worldview of The Nation (Supaluck and Chang Noi aside as well), Pravit offers a different take of things.

Pravit was one of the first to criticise the PAD back in March 2006. Just after the September 19, 2006 coup, Pravit wrote an article criticising the media for their willing acceptance of the coup and the lack of criticial commentary of the coup. The Nation, that beacon of media freedom, refused to publish it although Prachatai did. Eventually, he managed to get a piece published in The Nation a few weeks later which was critical of the coup. Since then, aside from his fellowship in the US, Pravit has written on a diverse range of subjects, from ISOC and sufficiency economy, homophobia and political protests, on PAD’s new politics, but also on the Thai media.

Now, Prachatai has interviewed Pravit mainly on the Thai media. The interview is long, but here are some key excerpts:

Pinpaka: The mainstream media talk a lot about this. We have a question from a red shirt, maybe to two sides, both the mainstream media and the white shirts who have called for no violence to be used. The question is about this issue of raising concerns about violence at red shirt rallies, though earlier there was not much talk about this, or even as you say, there was talk about non-violence at PAD rallies at the beginning but now this is not being discussed.

Pravit:…  What I think is a tragedy is not being able to see the feelings of many poor people who support Thaksin. So ask, hey, apart from being fed by populism and receiving money or patronage, are there any other reasons in society that make these people feel they cannot accept the old political system where the old elite has influence in the background? I think this is what is missing in questions about current political problems in Thailand. It’s no different from a seriously ill patient. Maybe an operation is needed, but you cannot even tell the doctor your symptoms. Part of asking questions about how political power is organized is linked to Privy Councillors, the Privy Council, the old elite. In fact you normally can’t talk about this because of the lèse majesté law. Because most yellow media or mainstream media don’t want to bring this into the equation, it makes the analysis of Thai politics really very peculiar, like a patient who cannot say what’s wrong or talk about needing an operation, but can just complain about the symptoms.

BP: Or one could say it “…is like trying to explain the unexplainable, without mentioning the unmentionable”.

Then on purchasers of the red shirt publications:

Another thing I’m interested in and have observed over the past 2-3 months is the assumption that the red shirts are just upcountry people.  We have to re-think this because I later found that the red shirts were selling their publications in bookstores on the sky train, in newspaper shops and bookstores in shopping malls like Siam Paragon, B2S in Central Chidlom or Thonglo or Lad Phrao, which really surprised me. I tried asking the salespeople which groups bought these publications. If you view the red shirts as upcountry people who take money from Thaksin, then who buys these publications? One salesperson I asked downstairs in the food court at Siam Paragon said that the buyers were ordinary people, even office workers in the Siam Paragon building, who are middle class.

That made me think that we need to ask a new question about how broad is the movement questioning the old elite. Later the red shirt media seriously targeted the old elite. I think that the question should be asked why, on important issues like this, the mainstream media are not interested in asking whether questioning the old elite is reasonable.

BP: In Bangkok, people have more disposable income than those up-country so it is not that surprising but the red shirt publications are sold widely.

Then, after Pravit’s criticism of the mainstream media:

Pinpaka: In this atmosphere, can the mainstream media get its credibility back?

Pravit: If you read in detail, you can see that some of the mainstream media, some columns or some news articles, truly try to consider things, try to find a perspective that is fair for many sides. Today I feel that there is a little hope. I have read the Daily News of Saturday 6 March. The editorial criticizes Korn Chatikavanij for tweeting that if there had been no coup, Thaksin’s money could not have been seized. “A politician in a democratic system should express a clear opinion opposing the seizure of power through a coup. This criticism is quite correct because it has to be accepted that the last coup damaged the country more than ever before, so should the coup be praised?” That was the question for Korn.

I see attempts in some articles in Matichon, Khao Sod and Thai Rath. I think that the important thing is that whether you are yellow or red, you should open more space for other views. I would still like to comment that in this respect, part of the mainstream media, as I have said, has a space for opposing views to a certain degree.  The red media at present lacks this because the red media is no different from Manager Daily, and it is what I call vigilante. This is media that believes it is correct and just condemns the other side. You can still see that some of the mainstream media tries to show different views. It is a pity that Bai Tong Haeng’s column was dropped from Thai Post. This signals that some of the mainstream media has less tolerance for differing opinions. There is a person in one mainstream newspaper who complained to me that his editor told him not to write. He shouldn’t write because he has a position as senior editor in this newspaper group but has a standpoint supporting the red side and the editor told him that he ought to realize that his own media is yellow. So when you’re a senior editor you shouldn’t write anything in the newspaper.

BP: Well that is one resason that BP mainly reads and quotes Matichon and Thai Rath more often than the other Thai language publications. ThaiPBS is also far superior to NBT, which has always been nothing more than the government’s media wing.