Journalists have criticised the government for media interference after the director-general of the Public Relations Department asked TV stations to cover each minister during the mobile cabinet meeting in Nakhon Ratchasima early next week.
"This can be regarded as media interference," said Thepchai Yong, president of the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association.
"It's not the media's duty to provide publicity for the government and each minister. The media's duty is to report what is useful for the people; that principle is clear," he said, adding it was only in the past when the military owned TV concessions and the government could tell stations what to do.
Meanwhile, secretary-general of the Thai Journalists Association, Mongkol Bangprapa, said such a request could lead the government to try further to influence the behaviour of the media, either directly or indirectly.
"It can also be seen as violating the principle of freedom of the press. Section 184 of the constitution states: 'MPs and senators should be careful not to interfere or obstruct the media's exercise of freedom of the press, directly or indirectly'," he said.
Hathairat Phaholtap, a Thai PBS reporter, posted on Facebook: "Please acknowledge I am a journalist. I service nobody but the people.''
Satien Viriyapanpongsa, PPTV executive editor wrote: "The government told the media it should help report on each of the ministers to promote the government's work. In what age are we living in?"
On Tuesday, government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd invited representatives from TV stations to a meeting where he asked each station to provide scoops on each minister's activities during the trip.
Lt Gen Sansern told the Bangkok Post he did not force the TV channels to choose the topic or minister, but said they should each pick a different minister, asking for a copy of "the scoop" so they could be aired via NBT.
"The discussion with the TV stations' representatives was to achieve mutual understanding and cooperation in producing scoops on ministers visiting the field. In the past, only news about the prime minister would air, even when many ministers were also visiting with locals. They want to see if there are any problems that the government can help solve," he said.
"I requested cooperation, asking which TV channels were interested in covering which ministers, to ensure that the news about the ministers reaches the people."
For those TV channels which did not come to the meeting, his staff contacted the stations to pitch the scheme.
On the list obtained by the Bangkok Post, 16 TV channels have agreed to do scoops on ministers joining the mobile cabinet trip. They are Channel 3, 5, 7, MCOT, Thai PBS, Channel 8, Mono 29, TNN, New 18 TV, True4U, One, GMM 25, Nation TV, Thai Rath TV, NBT and NBT World, registering for 18 topics.
The mobile cabinet meeting will take place on Monday and Tuesday.