The Nation is a broadsheet, English-language daily newspaper founded in 1971 and published in Bangkok, Thailand. It is one of two English-language dailies in Bangkok, the other being the Bangkok Post.
The Nation is a member of the Asia News Network. It is owned by the Nation Multimedia Group (NMG). In January 2018 the Nation Multimedia Group, in a hostile acquisition, was taken over by Sontiyan Chuenruetainaidhama, founder of conservative outlets T News and INN News.
Video The Nation (Thailand)
History
The Nation was founded by journalists in 1971 as The Voice of the Nation. The name was eventually shortened to "The Nation."
The paper changed considerably in 1991, when several Thai journalists from the Bangkok Post defected to The Nation.
In 2008, The Nation laid off substantial numbers of staff and under the new editorship of former business editor Thanong Khanthong recast itself as a business newspaper, moving international wire copy to a free tabloid insert, the Daily Xpress.
As of January 2018 the Nation Multimedia Group consisted of two digital TV stations, the English-language Nation newspaper, two Thai papers, and a publishing house. Its acquisition by T News is the result of a three-year effort to acquire controlling stock interests in Nation Multimedia properties. The Nation conglomerate has had financial difficulties for years.
The two brothers who head The Nation, co-founders Suthichai Yoon and Thepchai Yong, will no longer be at the paper's helm. Suthichai retired on 12 January 2018. Thepchai will depart in April.
Maps The Nation (Thailand)
Editorial line
The Nation and the Bangkok Post are similar in their coverage of international news. Their target audience is English-speaking Thai upper and upper-middle classes. After Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was elected in 2001, several companies associated with him ceased to advertise in The Nation. The newspaper reported the advertising cuts and adopted a vehemently anti-Thaksin editorial line.
Though The Nation has a far right opinion page, which welcomed the 2014 coup and military rule, its daily news coverage is more center-right, criticizing, for example, Thailand's lèse-majesté law. According to acclaimed, left-of-center journalist, Pravit Rojanaphruk, who worked at Nation for 23 years, in its heyday, Nation "...was a bastion of committed journalism and tolerance." But over the past decade, it "morphed from a progressive newspapers into a coup-apologist cheerleader for military intervention,..." Pravit was fired from The Nation in 2015 after release from a three day junta detention without charge for "attitude adjustment", his second such detention.
The acquisition by T News portends a further move to the right by the Nation group. T News is ultra-royalist and pro-junta both editorially and in its daily coverage.
Satirical reaction
In December 2007 an unknown person started a satirical website called Not The Nation, a send-up of The Nation's website and coverage of Thai affairs. For a while the website was non-functioning, for unknown reasons. Its pages once featured an image of Abhisit with the quotation: "A perfectly legal site. but we're working on that" and another of Thaksin with the legend, "didn't I sue them out of existence in 2004?" The site later satirized itself with a link to Who Do We Wrongly Think Is Behind NTN?
Linking directly to the site post-2014 Thai coup d'état redirects to a site-suspension notice modified Thursday, 30 September 2010 at 22:59:26 UTC with an image of a hat-rack, hat, and orange beach shirt, and the legend: This site has stepped out for a bit. On 3 March 2015, the site restarted "with a new executive staff appointed by Thailand's military government."
See also
- Media of Thailand
References
External links
- Official website
- Today's The Nation front page at the Newseum website
- Comparison of The Nation and The Bangkok Post
- Thailand Media overview
- Not The Nation Website
Source of article : Wikipedia
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