Newsprint prices soared and advertising revenues shrank by 60 percent, while many of the remaining reporters dealt with a two-year salary freeze. Though the crisis carried painful consequences, those hard times also produced growth and maturity in the Thai press. So many changes have occurred in the past three years as a result of the Asian crisis. Thailand's new constitution, approved in 1997, helped a great deal thanks to its numerous sections on rights and freedoms, which led to the establishment of the Constitutional Court, the National Commission to Counter Corruption, the National Electoral Commission and the National Human Rights Commission. For journalists, these new tools have been a challenge to do better work, to be more vigilant and better informed.
Journalists are under increasing pressure to be more professional.
It was Prasong who broke the story, in early 2000, of the then-Deputy Prime Minister Sanan Kachornprasart's suspicious financial doings, which led the National Commission to Counter Corruption to take up the case and finally indict him. Prasong and his colleagues were also the first to report that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had transferred millions of baht in shares in his telecommunications company to maids, drivers and security guards in an alleged attempt to skirt asset-declaration regulations. Over the past three years, the media have been trying to adjust themselves to the changes. Those changes reflect the needs of the people, of the public. Thailand's resurgent media and reform climate has led to increasing credibility and influence in the Southeast Asian region.