Thailand may consider itself lucky when it comes to press freedom compared to its counterparts in Asia, but the industry’s situation is far from perfect.
The Nation reports that international forum of newspaper chiefs dubbed “The New Media Landscape and its Press Freedom Challenges” took up the “sad story” of print media earlier this week in Bangkok. Particular topics of discussion included poor press freedom and financial issues that have come to define the industry regionally.
Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) Executive Director Gayatri Venkitesuwaren said that among the issues taken up were Thailand’s lese majeste law, the killings of journalists in Indonesia and the Philippines, and the controlling of the internet through laws such as the Computer Crimes Act in Thailand and the Philippines.
Ferrial Haffajee, editor of City Press in South Africa, disclosed that problems in his region ranged from the incarceration of journalists in Ethiopia to the state of emergency in Nigeria. Additionally, the Democratic Republic of Congo has become known as a no-go zone for journalists. At the same time, reporters are still having a difficult time getting into North and South Sudan, Zimbabwe and Somalia.
