A bittersweet farewell to Life

A bittersweet farewell to Life

Amid the downturn and lower popularity of mainstream media, as opposed to fast-speed online channels, coupled with the deprivation of press freedom under the junta, it comes as no surprise to see newspapers and magazines ceasing publication.

And amid those changes in the media landscape, reporters are forced to adapt and change in order to survive.

For myself, the end of this month marks the end of my career as a journalist.

I can still remember my first day as a reporter. In March 1995, I began working as a business reporter/rewriter for The Nation, an English-language newspaper which has long been the Bangkok Post's competitor. I was given this job opportunity despite my zero knowledge of journalism. I applied for the job using my Bachelor's degree in English and Master's in political science. I later overheard editors say they preferred recruiting and training those without journalism degrees since new faces were eager to learn new things.

The first assignment for me was the launch of a new model of electric fans. It sounded dull, but provided me with basic knowledge of news reporting as well as a precious lesson about professional ethics. The participating reporters were offered an electric fan as a souvenir each and most of them accepted the items while a few refused. I later found that it was inappropriate and unethical for reporters to accept "gifts" from news sources. The incident taught me about journalistic ethics.

Being just 22, I was full of energy and enthusiasm. Each working day, I had to interview news sources or attend between one-to-three press conferences and submit at least one decent news report before the afternoon deadline. I also had to translate a few Thai articles or economic research briefings into English.

After a few months of on-the-job training, newly recruited reporters were eventually taught by editors about news reporting and journalism during an in-house training course.

In 1995, I decided to move onto another job -- as a general news rewriter at the Bangkok Post. Throughout my 10 years at that job, I had both challenging and boring times. Being a news rewriter is not just a news translator. Rewriters must work hard, as if we were translators and reporters simultaneously. Often, we needed to transform several fragments of news into one good news report or often even a lead story. Working there was comparable to an adventure because I always learned new things and had to put pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together. During free time, I did news reporting both locally and abroad and wrote articles for special publications. However, there were some boring times when I had to translate similar things year after year like road death tolls during long holidays. What I disliked most was rewriting information provided by "unnamed" news sources who requested anonymity because I worried about news reliability.

After a decade of being a rewriter, I became a feature writer at Outlook, the lifestyle section that was later renamed Life. I was very happy writing about art and culture as well as charitable activities and those with kind and brave hearts as presented in the section We Care.

My writing ability continued to improve over time thanks to the kind support, guidance and advice from my editors and senior writers who tirelessly applied both carrots and sticks in encouraging me to hone my skills. I was also groomed to focus on accurate, fair and balanced news reporting as well as moral and professional ethics.

For almost a decade now, I have been a travel writer who has "been there, done that" all over Thailand and the globe while still writing cultural articles, which are my most favourite topic.

Unfortunately, everything has its end. I made one of the most difficult decisions in my life -- to quit my beloved job after a few sleepless months of worries and fears about the destiny of the newspaper industry in the digital age. With deep regret, I have to leave for that very reason -- to keep all these precious memories amid increasing threats of capitalism and media freedom restrictions.


Pichaya Svasti is a travel and feature writer for Life section, the Bangkok Post.

Pichaya Svasti

Life Writer

Pichaya Svasti is a writer of the Life section of the Bangkok Post.

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