It was about three on a Sunday afternoon. The sun was so bright that everything had turned white, matching the colour of the wooden doves flying around the Democracy Monument.
Before the crowd had even reached its peak of more than 10,000 protestors, it was already a spectacular show of defiance after six years of repression.
Yet mainstream television was still showing its regular programs. It was not until the evening news that they decided something big was going on.
Online media have been blasting the news since Saturday when they knew that pro-monarchy demonstrators would also be there before the students and pro-democracy supporters arrived.
You would think that at least one news channel would be all over it but they were too scared of what the government could do to them.
Still, it is a gain for online media.
I will not talk about print because they have to publish the next day and their online arms have been trying to match the speed of the newcomers so they cannot afford to miss anything.
What I want to talk about is television which still pulls the biggest audience. This is where most, at least 60 per cent, of the advertising money is going to.
In a democratic society which ensures press freedom, the media should be able to cover anything that they believe is going to be useful for their audience without state inference or intimidation.
Now, at least two free TV channels are state-owned so there is no need to talk about them either, but there are more than ten other free, satellite and digital channels, so what were they doing?
If they are so afraid of students touching scared institutions, they can turn the volume at the protest site down and write their own narrative.
However, one digital television channel has such a bad reputation among the protesters that its own reporter felt too afraid to even identify herself to the protestors.
About 20 years ago, there were only two English newspaper and five television channels. I was in love with print publications. Reporters at the Nation and Bangkok Post were my idols.
But time will keep on moving forward and new technology will always come along to change things.
After three years with the Nation on the print side, I felt like it was time to move on. I joined a start-up team before getting back to the keyboard with Bangkok Post one year later in 2018.
It was around that time that I heard that The Nation was being taken over by a far-right media group.
Sontiyan Chuenruetainaidhama, the founder of conservative outlets such as T News and INN News, is now the owner of the Nation Multimedia Group.
The takeover has changed the Nation TV into an ultra-royalist and pro-junta media outlet but its digital content is still strong so my heart goes to them for trying to fight against the new owner.
Its TV arm, however, has taken a dive into the coup-makers’ bosom and they are not coming out soon which left many followers disheartened, including me.
In regards to the incident this past Sunday involving The Nation TV’s reporter, she was afraid which led her to lie. It was deeply against journalistic ethics to lie about which agency you are representing to the interviewees.
But the protestors were also afraid as Prayut’s government has been harassing dissidents left and right since he came into power and they are now trying to put university students in jail.
Nevertheless, it was not the fault of the reporter that her television channel has been so biased that the protestors might not even want to talk to her or show their disapproval towards the channel through her.
The editors at the Nation TV should have taught her how to deal with the situation, and if anything, senior reporters should be the one on the ground, not this young reporter who does not even work in the political field.
If the Nation TV is going to continue to support Prayut and his government, it is time for them to also stand behind it and stop lying about who they are. We all know already.
