The Nation's Political Desk Gives Public Relations Advice to their Beloved Junta

Web War of Words

Council for National Security fumbles as Thaksin makes a comeback in cyberspace

The Nation


There is only one thing they have in common: their eagerness to appear loyal to His Majesty the King. The surface is clear. But like every public relations drive, the devil hides in the details.

There are two opposing forces. In one corner are supporters of the Council for National Security (CNS), the fancy name the junta gave itself after toying with a number of labels that included the words "democracy" and "constitutional monarchy".

Packaging itself for public consumption has never been the junta's strong point. And in a time of political crisis - when faith and support for the CNS is on the downturn - the junta needs, perhaps more than ever, to find a spin machine that can hit back at its critics with finesse and sophistication.

But it won't be easy, because in the other corner stands the pro-Thaksin camp, waiting to bitch-slap every little thing the junta and the government puts out.

They came up with pictures of the ousted premier, his video clips, music videos and news links for other "useful" sites. They've also turned to blogs.

Tit for tat, a spitting contest - call it whatever you want - but the junta is losing out in this war being played out on the computer screens of the 10 million Internet users in the country.

And the more the government blocks the sites, the quicker new ones pop up - with the same damning message. What was once "thaksin.net" quickly became "thaksin.org". The pro-Thaksin camp works swiftly.

To be fair to the CNS, it would not be realistic to expect the junta to grasp the enormous challenges of the age of PR.

Continued


The Nation fascinates me. It openly gives public relations advice to a military junta. The Nation is so utterly shameless that it boggles my mind.

Where else in the world would a so-called called progressive newspaper be allowed to do this and get away with it?

The Nation is like the Fox News of Thailand, but only worse, because even though Fox roots for the the Republican agenda, it doesn't actually tell the Bush administration how to do PR.

Also, Fox doesn't give the Bush administration advice on how to destroy the Democratic Party.

The Nation editorial staff, on the other hand, speaks out as if it is taking hand outs from the junta's not so secret propaganda slush fund.