Journalistic Professionalism in Thailand: A Crisis of Ethics?¹

Recently Thai scholars and public intellectuals have praised the increasingly active role of the media in inducing political changes. However, they have also voiced concerns about the media’s objectivity and their values of social responsibility. As these scholars argued, the Thai media lack objectivity, are biased and leads public opinion. These growing concerns of professional standards and values of social responsibility among the Thai media practitioners led to several attempts to establish checking mechanisms. This paper discusses journalistic professionalism in Thailand by exploring newsgathering activities, professional ideologies, and values of social responsibility among Thai journalists.