(4 June) PM Yingluck Shinawatra gave
keynote address to the 65th World News Paper Congress, hosted
at Central World shopping mall in Bangkok today.
She thanks everyone,
especially the media who give her a chance to run the country in the hard times when she had to
undertake the hard problems during the Great Flood of 2011.
Today, Ms. Yingluck said, the
government has shown that Thailand is a country to visit and she is excited to appear in front of
the media to thank them for the kindness they have shown from her first days of work.
She
also expressed gratitude to the Board of WAN-IFRA to choose Thailand as the host of the conference
this year, stating that we are proud to welcome experts and newspaper editors, advertisers and media
from around the world.
The Prime Minister said that ASEAN will become one of the main
machinery of growth for Thailand, with a population of over 600 million people with rising incomes
and purchasing power comes enormous potential for business growth, so countries must accelerate work
to reduce barriers to trade, which she is confident that the ASEAN will achieve its goals in 2015.
Asia has a variety of cultural, political, economic concepts and lifestyle, she said.
This diversity is a strength. It is possible this may lead to conflict and confrontation,
it requires carefulness and understanding, Ms. Yingluck told the audience.
Later in her
speech, she turned to the topics on the media by saying that the press has a key role because the
responsibility and freedom of the press to make the public receive the information accurately and
completely, while being thoughtful.
However, she said, the lack of responsible freedom will
create confusion or misinterpretation.
Freedom of the press is not entirely unlimited within
a developed democracy, Ms. Yingluck said, so it is necessary to take into account the interests of
the public, peace, individual rights, and national security, and be aware that there are third
parties who want to distort information for personal gain.
Therefore, Ms. Yingluck told her
audience, the responsibility of the media and journalism needs to stand on the basis of
professionalism and common sense, it is important to have a balance between freedom and
responsibility of the press.
Maybe the information is correct and incorrect, which has
become more difficult to discern. It requires close cooperation between the editors to ensure that
the information via the Internet truly reflects the balance between freedom and responsibility
of the media, the Prime Minister concluded.
