THAILAND

How the press is bolstering democracy
 Just after midnight, May 17, 1992, the order came from military authorities who had already opened fire on pro-democracy demonstrators in Bangkok: no stories or photos of the protest. The editors of The Nation, an English-language newspaper, huddled. "We didn't know whether they would close all the papers," recalls Thepchai Yong, then the news editor.

 That morning, The Nation's detailed coverage led with a front-page photo of policemen clubbing a cowering protester. Copies of the newspaper picture were circulated around the city, drawing more outraged people to the huge street rallies. The protests forced the chiefs of the armed forces, who had seized power in a 1991 coup, to step down. Free elections followed, and a critical element was the support for democracy of the country's privately owned newspapers.

 Since the uprising, a more liberal atmosphere has made the media even more powerful in fostering Thai democracy. They are bringing public opinion to bear on politicians who once wheeled and dealed with impunity.

 Thailand's surging middle class, which led the 1992 uprising, is leading this media revolution. The top papers -- including the The Nation (owned by a prominent journalist and local businessmen, with a circulation of 50,000) and the Bangkok Post (owned by local businessmen, with a circulation of 60,000) and the Thai-language Matichon (owned by journalists, with a circulation of 425,000) -- champion the rule of law and more accountable government.

 Some self-censorship continues, and last year the authorities canceled a few critical programs on state TV and radio. But among Southeast Asia's ten countries, the freedom of Thailand's media is matched only in the Philippines.

 The most important media reform was breaking the state monopoly over TV. The first non-government station, Independent TV, began broadcasting in July 1996, stressing news and documentaries. Later this year, the government will open bidding for a second station.

 The Nation is part of a consortium operating ITV, and Thepchai is now the station's news editor. ITV is shaking up a Thai TV news culture characterized by drawn-out footage of ceremonies and of officials expounding their views. When six drug suspects were shot dead last November, state TV had the police saying they opened fire in self-defense. ITV interviewed witnesses and, as did some newspapers, suggested that the men were summarily executed. A parliamentary inquiry resulted.

 Even the state media are changing with the times. Radio is bolder and the TV stations are airing a wider range of views, sometimes including not-so-subtle criticism of the government. But what's literally got the whole town talking are the many public-affairs talk shows with audience participation that have appeared on TV and radio for the first time. While stuck in Bangkok's notorious traffic, housewives and businessmen using mobile phones call in to vent their frustrations at the congested roads, the sluggish economy, the government. "At one time we couldn't say anything about politics," says Surapone Virulrak, a vice president of Chulalongkorn University. "Now we can even go too far."

Peter Eng, a free-lance writer, was news editor of the AP bureau in Bangkok until last year.

OFF SICILY

Why are you just now hearing this?
 Last Christmas Day a ship carrying hundreds of would-be illegal immigrants, attempting to smuggle themselves into southern Europe from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, dropped anchor somewhere off Sicily. The captain, a known smuggler of human cargo, herded some 300 of his passengers -- whom he had charged up to $8,000 each to slip into the First World -- onto a small wooden vessel that was supposed to take them ashore. He was drunk and violent. Either by accident or by design, the master ship, flying under a Honduran flag, suddenly turned into the side of the overcrowded landing boat. It sank and 283 people are believed to have died.

 Chances are, you are reading about this for the first time. How come?

 The New York Times and The Washington Post ran short wire reports, and most U.S. papers failed to do even that. In Europe, too, the coverage was minimal. Only The Observer, Britain's oldest Sunday paper, assigned correspondents to the case in the weeks after the event. The paper ran prominent articles over two weeks in mid-January.

 The grim calculus of death-and-disaster coverage is familiar. Some stories -- because of whom they involve, where they happen, or their likely impact -- tend to excite editors; others don't. But mass death in European territory, especially when it may have been an intentional massacre, usually merits attention in the West. What, then, was the calculus in the case of the ship Yioham?

 On the simplest level, the Greek islands, where survivors eventually landed, are remote and the disaster occurred during the holiday season, when many senior editors and correspondents were on vacation. And it developed slowly and confusingly. Some survivors phoned their homes in Asia and told their families about the disaster. Over the next few days, most were rounded up by the Greek police and put in detention centers. Their story began leaking out. On January 4, Reuters ran a short report about a possible disaster at sea. Five days later, the news agency reported that the Greek police had issued arrest warrants for mass murder against three fugitive Greek sailors, and were seeking the captain of the Yioham, a Lebanese resident of Athens.

 But on another level, troubling political and editorial issues arise. As David Rose, one of The Observer correspondents on the story, put it: "There's a sense in which people who try to come in illegally are non-people. They're completely dehumanized."

 In any event, the media missed a big, many-layered story. "The fact that the victims were undocumented made the story more interesting for me, because the exploitation of immigrants and the handling of immigrants is one of the great scandals of our time," says Bill Keller, foreign editor of The New York Times. "It's the modern-day equivalent of a slave ship sinking a couple hundred years ago. There was a profit motive here; you could affix some kind of accountability. That's why I wish we'd done more with it."

Sasha Abramsky lives in New York and often writes about European and U.S. politics.

MEXICO

 In his 36-year career as a leading editor and journalist in Mexico's most rough-and-tumble news town, J. Jesus Blancornelas has seen his partner murdered, his newspaper shut down by union goons, and all copies of an offending issue confiscated by the government.

 But nothing prepared him for the events of April 9, when his former attorney and his former accountant were murdered as they were leaving a popular Tijuana restaurant. Blancornelas had recently sued the accountant, Hector Navarro, accusing him of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars. After the crime NavarroÍs widow publicly accused Blancornelas of ordering the hit.

 "In all my years as a journalist, this is the most difficult moment," says Blancornelas, editor and publisher of the prize-winning weekly tabloid Zeta. "There's an enormous press campaign against me." Indeed, the accusation was splashed all over the front pages of Tijuana dailies.

 As the hard-nosed editor of one of Mexico's most aggressive newspapers, Blancornelas has made plenty of enemies. Over the years, while other local papers were reprinting press releases and flattering officialdom, Zeta was investigating drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, and official corruption -- and naming names. That style of journalism has won Blancornelas awards from press organizations in the United States, including the Committee to Protect Journalists. William A. Orme, Jr., CPJ's executive director, describes him as "the spiritual godfather of modern Mexican journalism."

 While Blancornelas had accused Navarro of embezzlement and had had a public falling-out with the murdered attorney, no evidence has been presented linking the editor to the killings. The authorities say they plan to question Blancornelas but do not consider him a suspect. Two of the newspapers accusing Blancornelas of the crime are owned by his political enemies: El Heraldo by a Tijuana impresario whom Blancornelas charges with ordering the murder of his partner and Zeta columnist, Hector Felix, in 1988; and El Mexicano by the leader of the government-controlled labor union that shut down Blancornelas's first newspaper in 1979.

 In the edition of Zeta after the murders, Blancornelas wrote that the crime may have been ordered "by the enemies of Jesus Blancornelas . . . in order to personally blame him or damage the newspaper."

 The professional nature of the hit -- two men driving a stolen car with California plates coolly shot both victims in the face with a shotgun -- also raises the possibility that one or both of the men had run afoul of Tijuana's drug bosses.

 The murders have already had a profound effect on the Mexican press. Despite a dramatic improvement in the Mexican media, for which Blancornelas and Zeta can claim much credit -- bribes have become less common and coverage more aggressive and competitive -- the allegations and recriminations played out in Tijuana's newspapers show that for some publishers the press remains a vehicle for attacking political enemies. And the murders themselves reflect a climate of growing violence in Tijuana that has many people, including journalists, frightened.

 "In Tijuana, I'm a hated man because I've written about all the corruption," Blancornelas laments. "Something could happen to me and they'd never find out who did it."

Joel Simon is the author of Endangered Mexico: An Environment on the Edge.

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