Word: yoon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...course Thai journalists have developed a number of tricks for outsmarting the censors. Leaning forward slightly in his chair, a flicker of a smile on his face, Yoon spills a few trade secrets. "Papers are not allowed to print pictures of dead bodies which the government claims would create nauseating feelings," he says. "We get around that one by captioning the pictures 'mortally wounded' or 'taken minutes before death.' Thai police don't read English too well." When Thai troops were sent into Laos to fight with Americans, the government forbade any articles on the bilateral affair. The Nation Review...
...says it was not always like this. For nearly 30 years after the 1932 establishment of the country's constitutional monarchy, Thai journalists remained quiescent, supporting whichever military regime controlled the government and considering few controversial issues. In the late '60s, however, Yoon and a few of his friends left the entrenched English-language newspaper, The Bangkok Post, and started a new type of paper, emphasizing more interpretative stories, more investigative reporting, and bolder editorials...
...Perhaps we were so enthusiastic because censorship was so strong under the military government in the '60s," Yoon says. "We thought journalism was the main opportunity to make changes in the society, to provoke people to thinking about things they took for granted. We managed to start a new trend in journalism, putting out politically serious newspapers instead of the popular sensationalistic publications that abounded...
TODAY CENSORSHIP is not as blatant. But the Revolutionary Party's decree No. 42, which empowers the government to close down papers with no legal recourse, and the all-embracing Anti-Communist law, remain ominous threats. "With no pre-publication censorship, editors play a dangerous game," Yoon says. "You take a gamble every time you go to press. You go as close to the truth as you dare, but you never know when you'll be shut down for something that appears in the morning paper...
...paper and others like it have not always been this lucky. After the 1976 coup, the Nation Review was closed down for more than a month, and its executive editor was arrested. Yoon was accused of being part of an anti-government conspiracy. Still such threats to individuals have not deterred the men in Yoon's circles. "In Thailand it is difficult to look at journalism as a detached career," he says. "Journalism in the Third World means you have a lot of involvement in what you write about. You are always advocating a cause...