NBT must serve public
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NBT must serve public

On Thursday, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin and the leader of the Pheu Thai Party, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, celebrated the 36th anniversary of the National Broadcasting Services of Thailand (NBT).

During the celebration, Mr Srettha presented his vision of modernising the national broadcasting service.

Apart from promoting government work and its flagship projects like the digital wallet, our prime minister wants the NBT to be an accurate and reliable source of information for people and a fact-checker.

Meanwhile, Ms Paetongtarn hopes that the NBT will become a world-class national broadcasting service like Japan's NHK and Britain's BBC.

Ms Paetongtarn wants the NBT to expand to various digital platforms, with local content translated into Chinese, Japanese, English and Spanish.

It has become customary for every political party coming to power to "reform" or "modernise" the NBT, formerly known as Television Channel 11.

The movement started with Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh almost three decades ago, yet a big change occurred when Thaksin Shinawatra became prime minister over two decades ago.

Thaksin was the first prime minister to use NBT airtime -- known as TV Channel 11 at that time -- to launch the Prime Minister Meets the People programme on April 28, 2001. Since then, every prime minister who came to power has had a weekly TV programme to communicate with the public

The format is the same: one-way communication. All Thai prime ministers have used the airtime to praise their policies and projects while defending them against critics. Therefore, the government uses the station to say what is going on, not to cover the progress or monitoring of its policies.

The problem is that the NBT is being used as a tool for public relations. Sometimes, politicians will send their own people to produce content at the NBT. The station has also outsourced airtime content to outside producers.

To be fair, many programmes have been well-made by professional media companies. Yet few have served the public's interests and instead become propaganda that deepened social and political divisions.

Critics are calling for significant reform at the NBT. The question is how and to what extent.

Is it necessary for the NBT to compete with other media outlets?

Is it possible for the NBT to keep the government, including its ministries, in check?

The station should not end up as a PR tool to offload the opinions of political parties.

NBT staffers are qualified professionals. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the station earned praise for providing helpful information to the public and reflecting the realities on the ground.

It is a real pity that the station abandoned its two-way communication policy when the pandemic eventually subsided.

Funded by taxpayers' money, a responsible minister can reform the NBT by simply making the station truly relevant for the public. What the NBT needs is a system to make sure that only qualified content is made for the public good.

The television station may not be able to reach the levels of Thai PBS, let alone NHK or the BBC, but it can serve as a forum between the government and the public instead of only telling us how good government policies are.

Editorial

Bangkok Post editorial column

These editorials represent Bangkok Post thoughts about current issues and situations.

Email : anchaleek@bangkokpost.co.th

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