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If you think about it, it’s quite remarkable that each day’s issue of the Bangkok Post is ever produced. Every day we are bombarded with an endless supply of stories from Thailand and rest of the world.
And if that isn’t enough, helpful public relations officers and advertisers are also calling us to suggest even more possibilities. In the end, however, the presses start rolling and by the wee hours of the morning, the Bangkok Post is ready for delivery.
How is the massive available content narrowed down to newspaper size? It’s done by filters – human filters in the form of editors, reporters and writers. They are constantly sifting through the stream of information, selecting and shaping it to suit their readership. And since the readership for each section of the newspaper can be dramatically different, the filters will vary accordingly.
For example, when M.R. Sukumbhand Paribatra, the previous foreign minister, slams the current government’s foreign policy, the news editors immediately recognise his statement as a significant item for tomorrow’s front section. Meanwhile, across town in the Oriental Hotel’s Le Normandie Restaurant, real.time columnist Pintuporn Needham may actually be interviewing M.R. Sukhumbhand. But she is talking to him not as a politician, but as an interesting personality from one of Thailand’s elite families.
"Hard news"
The bread and butter of serious newspapers like the Bangkok Post is still the so-called hard news – significant events here and abroad that demand attention and demand it immediately.
"Basically what we are looking for," says Chadin Tephaval, the Bangkok Post’s Deputy Assignment Editor for news, "is something which will capture the interest of people and something which is important in the sense that it will affect the lives of many people.
"If the government should all of a sudden declare a rise in taxes, it’s going to affect a lot of people," Chadin says by way of example. "If government officials change traffic flow, we would be interested in running that type of story because people who live in the city will definitely be affected."
The Bangkok Post has always been known for its political coverage, Chadin says. "Today, of course, we see a new type of politics because of the new constitution. We are getting to see a lot of new developments because we haven’t had things like the national counter-corruption commission."
Crime, too, is a "valid news story," he says but "we tend to pay less attention to ghoulish crime stories. We are not that type of paper. We will never print of photos people stabbed to death.
"But we will certainly cover crimes of interest to the general public like the case of Chalermchai Matchaklam of the so-called "military mafia" or Duangchalerm Yubamrung. These types of stories say a lot about Thai society."
Local stories are chosen by consensus. At the foreign desk, however, selection is largely up to the chief international sub-editor who is on duty on a particular night.
"The main stories of the day are usually obvious," says senior sub-editor, Jim Burgoyne. If something happens in the Middle East and that tops the lists of all the different wire services, then generally I’ll go along with it. Or if something happened ten minutes from now in an area of the world that we have been covering – if something happened on the Indian-Pakistan border – that would be an obvious lead story," he explains.
Proximity to Thailand is also a factor in story selection. "We give very good play to Southeast Asian stories, Asian and South Asian stories," he says.
For the lesser stories, he says, the choice is much more according to individual tastes.
"You have to go with what you think is interesting to read and what I pick won’t be the same as you pick or what many of the readers would pick. It’s a very subjective thing."
Internal competition
 News editors Peter Finucane, Wasant Techawongtham and Chadin Tephaval consider the placement of a story at their evening meeting. |
According to Bangkok Post senior editor Peter Finucane, clashes are frequent between the general news and business sections. "You can define just about anything as being business," he explains, and the two departments often vie over the same story.
Business editor Pattanapong Chantranontwong agrees there is competition, but he says there are differences in perspective which keep it at a minimum. The World Cup, for example, is a sports story, but there are also many angles of that story – marketing, media coverage, sponsorship, licensing arrangements for consumer products – that clearly involve business.
"Basically, we focus on stories we think will benefit our readers. That’s our priority," he says. Since his section tends to draw its readers from the top levels of the local business community, "our focus will not be on small business," he explains.
Change of focus
If you walk about sixty metres across the editorial room to the Outlook section, the focus will change dramatically. Here, says editor Suwanna Asavaroengchai the aim is to reflect what is most current in areas such as entertainment, society, fashion, the media, culture and the arts as well as human interest stories related to current topics in the news.
"Our mission in the last 10 years has been to increase local content," she explains. "This begins with recruiting writers. Since the story ideas come from the writers’ initiative, Outlook needs to hire writers with different interests to ensure a balance in the content of the section.
"If a topic has been overexposed," she says, "we won’t write about it." One exception to this rule is when a well-covered issue has a fresh angle.
"A group approached us to do a story about handicapped children. There is a group of foreign volunteers who are working with the children — touching, holding them — preparing them for adoption by foreign families. That’s a new angle."
International story selection is the domain of Chief Outlook sub-editor, Normita Thongtham. "It’s the readers we are thinking of when we choose stories, but our own interests also guide our choice. I’m very particular about environmental issues so if I find a story about a good idea that might serve as a model for Thailand, I’d choose that.
"It’s the same for education and technology issues. Other countries may be ahead of us so those stories that can serve as examples for Thailand."
The weeklies
The weekly sections of the Bangkok Post have a narrower focus than the daily news, Business and Outlook sections. Monday’s Your Money, for example, takes a very personal look at the world of finance, helping readers keep their own households above water. On Tuesday, of course, the focus changes to education with our own Learning Post.
Wednesday is technology day and that means Database. Obviously, we’re looking at technology", says Database editor Tony Waltham, "but it really has to be its impact here in Thailand. For example, we look at international news in the framework of what it means for Thailand. If Malaysia or Cambodia are doing something big in broadband, then Thailand should take note.
"Our news coverage is dictated by our readership," Waltham says. "I like to think of it as being people in business who are not perhaps IT professionals. They are more management types who have a PC at home. They do the Internet and they get frustrated at times. They don’t want to know every last detail, but they do want to know what’s happening in technology, so they can at least be aware when meeting with their MIS or IT departments."
What stories are making news now? "The general state of the global IT economy, answers Waltham "and what’s happening to different industries in relationship to that. Broadband and wireless are two areas which are very significant. Hardware is sort of boring at the moment, but we have to report developments there."
Thursday’s Horizon’s section is devoted to travel. With ten years of experience, editor Danny Ansusingh has a very clear idea of the kind of stories he wants for his section.
"We have to keep track of what’s happening in the travel business," he says. From my contacts and my experience, I can pick the hot topics.
"Secondly, for travel features, we want to present stories that have never been published before – for example, the potential for tourism in East Timor with its scuba diving, beautiful beaches and fishing.
"Sometimes, says Ansusingh, we find a story from a wire service, but we want to follow up and give the story another angle – we improve it a lot by making it fit our Thai readers. Most wire stories are written for an American audience, so we talk with our local contacts – people in the industry, tour operators. Then we give credit as AP-Bangkok Post.
"We are mainly entertainment, plus lifestyle," says Prapai Kraisornkovit editor of the Friday real.time section. "Celebrities, movies, people. We’re also a weekend section, so we try to choose stories which help prepare the readers for what they can do on the weekends and beyond.
"For the cover story, we try to narrow it to entertainment. It might be an interview with a film director, a singer, or an upcoming concert. We don’t do reviews, we do previews. So after they read the story, they can then go and attend that event.
"We have a big listing section which is very popular. We list events in a very detailed, informative manner. You have telephone number, you have price. We give it four or five pages.
"We try to introduce new restaurants," Prapai continues, "and we don’t do bad restaurants. Sometimes we go and we taste the food and its no good, so we go to another place. This happens quite often. There is no point in introducing a bad restaurant because we are a weekly section."
The final weekly section is Sunday’s Perspective. Here the focus is on the news, but the intention is not quite the same as the main news section.
"Our job is to explain what happened," says section editor Songpol Kaopatumtip. "The daily news section is limited in space. In Perspective we can run a full page on a particular subject, so the readers can understand the issue better. They hear all the different viewpoints.
Whenever possible, Perspective reporters try to do investigative reporting, digging up information on hot topics never before reported. That, in Thailand, says Songpol, is no easy task.
"Talking to people is very difficult. You phone them and they say they’re not available or they don’t want to talk to you – especially when you are after a very controversial issue like the gas pipeline (in Songkhla) or corruption. So most of the time we just do features or political analysis," he says.
terryfrd@ksc15.th.com |