Sorrayuth quits anchor role
Advertiser exodus spurs news host exit
Bowing to increasing public pressure, embattled TV news anchor Sorrayuth Suthassanachinda decided yesterday to quit his role as a news show presenter after he was convicted and sentenced for embezzling ad revenue from MCOT.
The move came after several companies withdrew advertising from TV programmes hosted by Sorrayuth, as media profession bodies, academics and anticorruption advocates urged him to step down and demonstrate responsibility after the Criminal Court sentenced him to 13 years and four months in prison on Monday.
“Starting this evening [March 3], I quit my duty as a TV host to prevent any impact on Channel 3, and to make everyone happy. Thanks to the Channel 3 family. Thanks to the fans. Thanks for the support. Until we meet again,” Sorrayuth wrote on his @sorrayuth9111 Instagram account.
Sorrayuth hosted his morning news talk programme yesterday but Teera Tanyapaibul took over with other co-hosts for the evening news show.
The News Broadcasting Council of Thailand, the Thai Journalists Association and the Anti-Corruption Organisation of Thailand were among critics calling on him to end his news anchor role. Saha Group, the country’s largest consumer product conglomerate, began pulling adverts from his programmes after the court ruling.
A Channel 3 source said the channel’s executives would not find anyone to replace Sorrayuth to host his news programmes. The channel’s management has allowed Sorrayuth’s news team to decide how to handle the programmes themselves, the source said.
The programmes hosted by Sorrayuth are Rueng Lao Chao Nee morning news, the news talk programme Rueng Den Yen Nee (The Top Story This Evening), and the Rueng Lao Sao Arthit news talk show on Saturdays and Sundays.
The public relations section of Total Access Communication Plc yesterday said that the company has withdrawn sponsorship for three TV programmes produced by Rai Som Co and hosted by Sorrayuth, a DTAC public relations source told the Bangkok Post.
According to Dailynews Online, Thanat Thanakitamnuay, the son of Kitti Thanakitamnuay, chief executive of SET-listed property developer Noble Development Plc, also confirmed the company had withdrawn advertising from all of Sorrayuth’s programmes.
Mr Thanat said the company would not advertise with Channel 3 until the channel takes Sorrayuth off the air. He said his father has taken a stance against corruption and that the company will not support any media outlets, programmes or show hosts who are involved in graft.
According to Dailynews Online, the Government Savings Bank will not renew a contract to buy advertising space on Sorrayut’s programmes as part of efforts to uphold good governance standards.
Prasarn Marukpitak, a former National Reform Council member, yesterday said Sorrayuth’s decision to step down demonstrates that social sanctions play a crucial role in upholding ethical standards.
Khunying Porntip Rojanasunan, who is a spokesman for the National Reform Steering Assembly, yesterday stressed the need for the media to be accountable to society, adding that social sanctions against corruption must be sustained and strengthened.
Following Sorrayuth’s decision to step down, Pitchayatun Chanphut, or Nong Bright, his co-host on the morning news talks programme, wrote on her Instagram account giving Sorrayuth her moral support. Sorrayuth is not only her colleague, but also like a brother, she said.
“I will wait for the day when I co-host the programme with you again to make our news family perfect as before,” she said.
Meanwhile, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) will meet 26 TV operators next Thursday to discuss ethical standards in the wake of the Sorrayuth controversy.
The meeting will be the first of its kind called by the telecom and broadcast regulator, said commissioner Supinya Klangnarong.
She hopes that commitments from all participants will be made and that guidelines will be issued to all broadcasting channels to follow in the future if similar cases occur again.
Social pressure has never been so strong on the media, she said. If media organisations fail to regulate themselves, she fears that a portion of society will seek state intervention to impose sanctions.
She added that the Sorrayuth case highlighted the varying ethical standards between different operators.
While some channels may temporarily take their anchors off air after a complaint is filed against them, others may wait longer or take no action at all, she said.
Ms Supinya called for a thorough discussion among channels executives to determine their code of conduct, arguing that it would create peer pressure, thus raising ethical standards in the longer run.
The public is also wondering why some media personalities have been targeted while others have been let off the hook, she said.
I quit my duty as a TV host to prevent any impact on Channel 3 and to make everyone happy. Until we meet again.
SORRAYUTH SUTHASSANACHINDA
Thailand’s political polarisation knows no bounds. The raging controversy over media personality Sorrayuth Suthassanachinda’s criminal conviction is merely the latest manifestation of a morality war being waged in Thai politics over the past decade between the rightful and the righteous for the country’s future power and soul. While it does not seem that way on the surface in Sorrayuth’s case, closer scrutiny indicates otherwise. The case also instructs us that such polarisation is no good for Thailand, that middle and third ways are still the only pathway out of the country’s holding position.
Sorrayuth is in huge trouble from a business manoeuvre back in 2005-06. His business venture, Rai Som Company, connived with an official of MCOT, an incorporated state enterprise formerly known as the Mass Communication Organisation of Thailand, for ill-gotten gains of 138.8 million baht. This amount was part of advertising revenue that should have gone to MCOT per contractual terms but instead was hidden from the books and went to Rai Som, the concessionaire and content provider.
Although Sorrayuth subsequently returned the money with interest, the misdeed had been done. The National Anti-Corruption Commission took up the case, which found its way into the Criminal Court. The malfeasance verdict that set the Sorrayuth controversy in motion was a jail sentence of 13 years and four months, commuted from 20 years owing to the defendant’s cooperation during the trial. In addition, a Rai Som employee received the same jail term, while the MCOT official was given a 20-year sentence, shortened from 30 years. The fine for Rai Som was just 80,000 baht, which is negligible compared to the total damage.
As the debate is over whether Sorrayuth should be allowed to continue working on Channel 3 — by law he can — the anchorman announced yesterday that he would suspend his role.
Those who invoke ethics and morality through good governance and corporate social responsibility advocate a stoppage of Sorrayuth’s news programmes. From one side of the Thai divide, they are vehemently anti-corruption and generally supportive and sympathetic to the protests that led to the coup in May 2014 and to the consequent military government itself. The other side believes Sorrayuth has a right to work while he appeals the case. They despise the morality and ethics platform and see it as hollow and hypocritical, full of double standards.
What’s at stake is the entire apparatus for what passes as crime and punishment in Thailand. It is clear from the court’s verdict that Sorrayuth and accomplices cheated. To what extent such cheating is criminal, punishable by a multi-year sentence, is a matter of contention.
To be sure, Sorrayuth’s troubles are more than meet the eye. He is an object of deep envy who happens to be irreverent and wildly successful in turning irreverence and media talent into a lucrative business. News archives will show that he has been a regime critic since he cut his teeth as a newspaper reporter 25 years ago. Sorrayuth was more or less against whoever was in power. His hardhitting investigative style and dramatic flair became good business, and just about all issues and controversies of the day eventually found their way onto his TV programmes.
As Thai society degenerated into a dualism of either/or and “us versus them” in recent years, the cost of Sorrayuth’s journalistic independence and personal media style mounted. There was little room for mistakes in a toxic political environment. The MCOT embezzlement ultimately did him in, even though crimes of that nature are not uncommon. It was not enough that he was a critic of all regimes over 25 years but that he had to be a critic of a certain regime (i.e. that of fugitive, self-exiled Thaksin Shinawatra) in the last decade. Not taking sides contributed to Sorrayuth’s downfall.
Notwithstanding the long appeal process to reverse the Criminal Court’s damning verdict, Sorrayuth made the right decision to go off the air in the interim, not to succumb to the witchhunting frenzy but rise above his opponents by obeying the spirit of the law. This is not easy to do in view of precedents where even bigger media moguls, such as Sondhi Limthongkul of Manager Media Group, worked under a criminal conviction while waiting out an appeal.
For the Thai public, the Sorrayuth case should not stop there. This is an opportune time to step up efforts to go after other corruption cases and places where big cheats reside. Cracking down on crooks and meting out tough sentences and imposing social sanctions on them should be even-handed and consistent across the board.
For example, in a recent case of insider trading at CP All where wrongdoing was admitted, relative impunity thrived with hardly a slap on the wrist. Why not impose social sanctions in that case? There have been instances in Thailand where people have been killed but the convicted perpetrators ended up not spending even a day behind bars.
Corruption and cheating reign in different shapes and forms. Sorrayuth’s is a case that normally would have involved a larger fine and a suspended jail term for a first offence. Making him a poster man for lack of integrity and criminal malfeasance puts more pressure on Thailand’s anti-corruption crusade not to come off as selective in enforcement and disproportionate in punishment.