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Aug 20, 2017-

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba said that the government would not control the media.

Inaugurating the 25th general assembly of Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) in the Capital on Sunday, PM Deuba said that the government is committed to help the media sector.

The government will not hold back media under any circumstances, he said.

I think it is hard to run media sector as there are lots of publications in the country, PM Deuba, who is also the President of ruling Nepali Congress, said.

Saying that the media has played an instrumental role for democracy and republic, he said that media and political parties should move together to take the country towards the path of prosperty.

Moreover, PM Deuba said that the media can ensure stability in democracy by suggesting, warning and criticising the political parties.

Information and Communications Minister Mohan Bahadur Basnet and FNJ Chairman Mahendra Bista were present in the programme.

The closed session of FNJ will start from today itself and the voting will begin from Monday, FNJ Chairman Bista informed.

Tirtha Koirala, Govinda Acharya and Ujir Magar are vying for the top post of FNJ.

Published: 20-08-2017 13:21

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Govt will not control media: PM Deuba - Capital - The Kathmandu Post - The Kathmandu Post

Lt Gen Sansern Kaewkamnerd, chief and propaganda and information for the junta. He has 'requested cooperation' in providing puffery and flattering news coverage of cabinet ministers, who control licences and some revenue streams from the TV stations.

The Prayut Chan-o-cha government is back in the eye of the storm for all for the wrong reasons. This time all eyes are on the mobile cabinet meeting set to take place tomorrow and Tuesday in Nakhon Ratchasima after government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd openly admitted that he had "requested" television stations to do "scoops" focusing on ministers attending the meeting.

Lt Gen Sansern, who is also chief of the Public Relations Department, defended his cooperation request by saying that each TV station has its strengths and the government wanted stations to do scoops in areas where they are strong. For example, if TV stations are strong on social issues, they should follow ministers who are responsible for that aspect.

Although one can forgive Lt Gen Sansern for his good intentions towards the government, notwithstanding the fact that it could be construed as media intimidation, the execution of this process was flawed from the start.

Umesh Pandey is Editor, Bangkok Post.

The complete list of which stations were contacted is not yet known, but a list obtained by the Bangkok Post showed that 16 television stations had agreed to the request. 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 registered to do exclusives on 18 topics.

If one was wondering whether the people in charge of seeking cooperation had specific TV stations in mind or was it random, well, these people had not done their homework because they contacted my staff to figure out if the Bangkok Post has a TV station. These officials were not aware that the Bangkok Post was lucky not to win the digital television bidding war that has become the cause of pain for the entire industry.

With broadcast media suffering, it is understandable that any request for cooperation from those who hold the key to licence payments and advertising revenue from the government's budget would lead to reluctant agreement from TV stations.

Most of the broadcast media houses are facing mounting losses and many are on the brink of going belly up, while some have already given up their hopes of revival. Therefore, such requests for cooperation usually end up being accepted and camouflaged as news coverage.

These kinds of requests come from both military and civilian governments. There have been some extreme cases in the past when cooperation requests did not work. In the early 2000s the Bangkok Post became a target for doing its job and reports emerged that then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra through his proxies wanted to take control of the company in order to control the newspaper's content.

The takeover battle failed and the integrity of our publication remained intact, but how one wades through these requests is the job of the editor of each media house.

There are many countries that have buckled under the pressure of companies or families that own media outlets, but others have managed to maintain their integrity and dignity and become immensely successful even as social media threatens to kill this industry.

In today's world where readers' and viewers' attention spans are so short that one needs to rethink ways of presenting news to the public, selling your soul to either the government or advertisers is only going to kill the industry at a faster pace. Kneeling to pressure from these requests will only diminish the trust and faith that readers and viewers have of that media house, and therefore speed up their decline.

Those requesting cooperation should also realise that the trend of news consumption is changing. The media outlets they are trying to influence are the only ones that require government licences to operate, and at times they may heed requests, but there is a much bigger world of news outlets on the internet that is totally beyond their control. The government has been trying to rein in those outlets for years but has been unsuccessful.

It is therefore best to let the traditional media houses do their job and not try to control their work or else the government will become part of the reason for their demise.

Traditional media houses struggling to find their right place in the new media landscape should also realise that their acceptance of requests for cooperation by the likes of Lt Gen Sansern or advertisers could be the final nail in their coffin.

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Twisting media's arm will backfire - Bangkok Post

Denali wolf (Photo courtesy of National Park service)

The states largest wolf control program was the target of a protest outside Alaska Department of Fish and Game Fairbanks headquarters on Thursday. The protesters organized by Alaskans for Wildlife want Fish and Game to immediately halt the long running aerial wolf kill in the Forty Mile River region, east of Fairbanks.

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A group of about 50 protesters howled and chanted outside the Fish and Game office, expressing dismay with the annual Forty Mile aerial wolf kill.

The winter spring wolf hunt is aimed at growing the Forty Mile caribou herd, but recent Fish and Game research shows it hasnt worked. The state plans to suspend the program next spring, not soon enough for protester and hunter Frank Maxwell.

Limitations on caribou populations are not due to wolves or predation, Maxwell said. Its due to nutritional stress as their studies have said. So its just wasting animals, wasting life and wasting money.

Over a thousand wolves have been shot from aircraft in the state program since 2004, with the harvest ramping up in recent years. Fish and Game regional supervisor Darren Bruning said despite indications that habitat is limiting caribou herd growth, the state will continue the wolf kill another year, for research reasons.

Having seven years of high intensity removal data to compare to the previous seven years of low intensity removal data is the most consistent reasonable and responsibleapproach, Bruning said.

Bruning maintains the comparison data is important to all interests.

Including the international, 40-mile harvest management coalition, and those who do not support predation control or are unsure about its benefit, Bruning said.

Bruning said the program will halt in the spring of 2018 after which biologists will see how the caribou fare without wolf control. Protester Sean McGuire with Alaskans for Wildlife says continuing the wolf kill for another season, just for science, is wrong.

I mean, these wolves are very intelligent, highly social creatures, McGuire said. To run an experiment on them when its not even gonna help the caribou herd, that is really outrageous.

McGuire adds that the predator control program costs Fish and Game over thirty seven thousand dollars per wolf harvested, spending the cash strapped state cannot afford. The states Bruning emphasizes that the Forty Mile area wolf kill is only being temporarily halted. He could not say when it would resume.

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Fairbanks protesters organize against the state wolf control program ... - Alaska Public Radio Network

The Public Relations Department's latest arrangement to have all mainstream TV stations cover a different minister during next week's mobile cabinet meeting will turn the broadcast media into the government's publicists. This may be a one-off "request" but it sets alarm bells ringing about the regime's directives on how the media should work and be regulated.

On Wednesday, the department's acting director-general, Sansern Kaewkamnerd, requested cooperation from the TV channels to provide sufficient publicity for all ministers during their field trips to several northeastern provinces next week. His request secured the commitment from 16 TV channels, each of which has been assigned to cover one minister. His department also makes a copy of ministerial "scoops" available for each outlet.

Lt Gen Sansern, also a government spokesperson, asked journalists and editors at a Wednesday meeting to immediately pick a different minister each. While he described it as "cooperation", working journalists see it as interfering in what and how the broadcast media should report.

From next week, the Thai TV audience will be forced to watch a series of "scoops" about the ministers on state-run NBT produced by different channels. One story per minister. No diversity. This arrangement is no different from asking them to cooperate in spreading government propaganda.

Lt Gen Sansern complained the media have focused exclusively on Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha during previous trips to the provinces, overlooking the work of ministers. But this rationale does not hold water: If officials do something of note, the media will cover it.

As the government's lead publicist, he should have offered the media tantalising details about what ministers plan to do during their upcoming trip, and let journalists decide how or whether they want to cover them. If certain ministers are known for their hard work and recognised for their leadership and vision, they will make headlines. The reason why they have not received sufficient coverage should speak for itself.

Lt Gen Sansern's vision of how the media should operate reflects the controlling nature of the military regime and Thai bureaucracy. This is more worrying as a bill on media regulation, proposed by the now-defunct National Reform Steering Assembly, is yet to be approved by the government. The bill has been criticised for paving the way for tightened state control of the press as it proposes a new national council to regulate the media.

If approved, high-ranking state officials will serve in the council during the five-year transitional period following next year's general election.

Lt Gen Sansern should be reminded that whatever "cooperation" these TV channels provide, this must not become the norm for how the media coverage of government affairs is governed.

By restricting the activities of politicians and activists, the regime has already gained leverage in influencing the public because the media can only cover what public figures are allowed to do. In fact, the National Council for Peace and Order's daily TV programmes, including Gen Prayut's weekly talk, which is aired on all TV channels, have given the government a tool to promote its policies.

The politically divided Thai society does not need one-sided information fed by such state-run programmes, which should have been scrapped long ago.

Respecting diversity in terms of content and news sources will keep the audience sufficiently informed and help forge understanding and tolerance in society.

Lt Gen Sansern's request for cooperation in this context need not be revisited. If it pops up again the public should prepare for a diet of state propaganda, not news, from the media.

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'Cooperation' as control - Bangkok Post

A large majority (70%) of the worlds biggest brands have changed media agency contracts this year to regain control of their spend, according to new research.

A report from theWorldFederationof Advertisers (WFA) has indicated that global multinational companies have been looking to respond to concerns that they have lost control of media activity.

This extends to 35 companies with a total annual marketing spend of more than $30 billion globally.

This research by the WFA found global brands making or having plans to make major and extensive changes to their media governance practices. This was across a wide range of areas.

According to the report, more active management of media issues now involves brand safety, viewability and ad fraud as well as the transparency issues raised by the ANAs reports from K2 and Ebiquity.

The survey was conducted in May this year and saw 73% % of respondents having global roles. The rest were in regional roles covering Europe, North America and APAC.

Overall, transparency remained top priority for 47% companies surveyed. Brand safety is also moving up in terms of priority, with 70% of companies adding that the issue has been escalated in the last 12 months.

On media transparency

On viewability

On brand safety

On ad fraud

The survey took place in May 2017 and 73% per cent of respondents had global roles, with the balance in regional roles covering Europe, North America and APAC.

WFA head of marketing services Robert Dreblow says: The WFA has long championed the need for clear and transparent relationships between brands and their agency partners. Last years ANA report was a catalyst for a new wave of action by brands not just in the US but around theworld, addressing many of the media issues that our members have highlighted including brand safety and ad fraud.

These actions, coupled with an increasing number of WFA members sharing that they have witnessed improved transparency, are positive signs that we can create an improved media landscape for brands, agency partners and media owners.

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World's biggest advertisers 'taking back control of their media spend from agencies' - Netimperative