Today, Thailand also celebrates World Press Freedom Day, designated by the United Nations.
This year, the UN theme focuses on the importance of journalism and freedom of expression in the current global environmental crisis.
The world is facing a climate crisis that requires better understanding and awareness among citizens, while still desiring an ordinary life.
Therefore, journalists have a responsibility to understand global environmental issues and report facts accurately.
Today, journalists must pay attention to supply chain challenges, climate-related migration, extractive industries, illegal mining, pollution, poaching, wildlife trafficking, and deforestation.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has emphasized the importance of keeping these issues visible to promote peace and democratic values worldwide.
In Thailand, making environmental challenges visible is a significant problem due to the scarcity and lack of professionalism of the journalists covering them.
Journalists need more training to understand the complexity of environmental issues on local, regional, and global levels.
They currently only superficially cover issues without delving into the causes and solutions.
The recent discovery of over 15,000 tonnes of abandoned cadmium waste is an example of this negligence.
This danger would have been reported earlier if the media had paid enough attention to serious environmental issues.
The issue is that Thai media focus too much on political and entertainment figures, neglecting important matters.
The rise of influencers and quickly shared news has sidelined environmental issues.
Thai media should recruit more journalists to cover environmental issues and other less sensational topics.
Unfortunately, most higher learning institutes are no longer interested in teaching traditional news gathering, fact-checking, and editorial skills.
Today, technology and AI greatly influence Thai journalism in terms of speed and content, but the accuracy of Thai social media is a problem.
Thailand has had a pretty good level of freedom of speech and media freedom from the local perspective.
It's about time for Thai journalists to work harder and enhance their overall journalistic abilities in covering serious issues that pose long-term risks, as the global community now considers it a top priority. The Thai media should definitely contribute to this positive trend.
Kavi Chongkittavorn
