The recently released Thai-language "Guide to News Reporting Amid Conflict" is a timely title given the current political tension, though it flatly fails to explain why the majority of the mainstream media are now perceived as part of the conflict and political problem.

The 186-page book, published by the Thai Journalists Association (TJA), Thai Broadcast Journalists Association and Thai Press Development Foundation and funded by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, may be well intentioned, but it doesn't even try to go beyond the offering of practical, known ways to avoid being a victim of political conflict such as avoiding wearing the wrong-colour shirt at political gatherings or having a handkerchief and bottled water ready to protect oneself against tear gas.

(To be fair, the book contains chapters about conflicts in the deep South, conflicts over natural resources and conflicts about marginalised groups, but this review will only touch on political conflict).

The lack of introspection is apparent from the introduction by editor Theeradej Eamsamran, who writes that the mainstream Thai media have been accused of not being impartial and some reporters subject to attack by "irrational demonstrators".

Irrational?

The editor should have known that attacks by some members of both the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) and Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship (DAAD) on reporters are due to their belief that some media are hopelessly biased against their groups and yet claim not to be so. There's nothing random about such attacks, and they are propelled by some logic.

Chapter Two relates how the media have operated in the tumultuous years since 2005. Section four of that chapter notes: "Without officially taking sides ... news presentation and articles largely expressed the negative view of Thaksin taken by the media, especially newspapers." No attempt is made to explain why there is such a bias, however.

Section five of the same chapter goes on to admit that "sometimes after the [2006] coup" the media "tried little by little" to present "more rounded reports". Again, no mention is made as to why, and nothing is said about how the majority of the Thai media have been sympathetic to if not supportive of the coup-makers. That attitude has made the majority of the Thai media enemies of the pro-Thaksin red-shirt DAAD, and an attempt to explain would have helped readers understand the deeply partisan media landscape that has prevailed.

As if trying to justify their lack of action, section nine of the chapter states that the TJA and other media associations have "not been able to do much" about the call to criticise biased reporting by media from either extreme "because they were attacked by both sides as being partisan".

There can be no justification for organisations such as the TJA not condemning excessive distortion of the news by all sides other than a simple desire to avoid nasty retaliation. That was why they live up to the saying that the media are like flies which do not scrutinise or smell their peers.

Chapter Three offers valuable findings on how biased mainstream media are, the result of studies by a group called Media Monitor, which looked at headlines and blurbs during the April political upheaval from Thai Rath, Daily News, Khao Sod and ASTV-Manager Daily and concluded they were overwhelmingly negative, condemnatory and judgmental about the red shirts while their coverage of the Abhisit Vejjajiva government was without such "colouring".

Expressions such as "red-shirt beasts from hell", "red hell", "beasts", "vulgar reds" were used in headlines portraying the DAAD. Yet again, neither Media Monitor nor the book makes any attempt to explain why.

Instead, readers are treated to another chapter which portrays the ideal world of "peace journalism" as opposed to the "war journalism" of Chapter Three.

In "peace journalism", the mass media should avoid branding anyone as good or bad. They should report the cause and effect of the incident, consider the diversity of those involved, avoid clearly taking sides, use neutral language and not be partisan, among other things. The book doesn't even try to offer any thoughts as to how the majority of the Thai media, which are deeply partisan, can turn away from war journalism and embrace peace journalism.

The lofty guidance thus remains lofty and disconnected from the present situation. The many crucial points missing in the book at least offer a glimpse of why the media continue to be just that: part of the problem.