Journalists group warns media bill a setback

The club also vowed to fight side by side with other media organisations, including the Thai Journalists Association (TJA) and Thai Broadcast Journalists Association (TBJA), which strongly oppose the government’s move.
On Monday, media groups met with the National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) media reform committee to express their concerns over its ongoing media reform efforts via an enactment of the new media regulation bill. 
The debate mainly revolved around Article 41, which concerns establishment of a new media professional council committee to oversee media licensing as well as other related issues of the whole industry. Its inclusion of government officials prompted fears of state interference in the media’s work.
The club’s statement said the current fragile relationship between the government and the media has demonstrated the attempt by the ruling junta to interfere with and dominate the media.
It expressed concerns that enacting the new regulations would violate press freedom and independence of the media, contradicting a fundamental principle in a democratic world, as well as threatening people’s right to information.
This, the statement said, has tainted the country’s image with regard to improving its democratic foundation in future while failing to represent the National Council for Peace and Order’s will to promote democracy according to its designated “road map”.
Senior journalists in the past, it said, fought hard to gain a high degree of press freedom which has been firmly guaranteed under the people-supported 1997 charter ever since. It described the latest moves by the government as a “retrograde”.
The club statement added that no democratic regime would suppress and dictate to the media – only a dictatorship would do that.