Today I went to another campus to receive the visiting professors and students from a University in the Philippines. I did that on Monday and today I needed to receive another group. Meeting them reminds me of the time when I was in the Philippines as a young journalist joining the ASEAN youth program. And I think the program like this helps me understand people from our neighboring countries a little better. I felt great to meet them, especially those who are in communication arts.

They would love to see the show in English. So I took them to see the show that I'm involved with at the state-run television station. To be honest, I personally feel that the place where I work is just okay. The staff there is nice but probably not the best to represent the experience of broadcasting industry of Thailand. I was relief to know that they went to visit Channel 3's Women to Women's live broadcast as well. That's one of the most popular shows of the country.

Anyway, at this state-run television station, some are just too much at ease when they work on the live show. They read some comic books and some even slept while on the job controlling those buttons. I don't blame them since it is their norms and niche culture that is rare to find in other broadcast station. But I felt a bit embarrassed to show this to visiting guests from another ASEAN country. I tried to explain to them that this is not common in the broadcast industry and what they experienced was not the accurate picture of the Thai television. The reaction I got from them was that they were surprised at the technology and equipment of the facilities of this state-owned television station. One of them told me that it looked better than the state-owned station in their country. I don't know if they tried to be polite or they really meant it. Or maybe their public tv station is not receiving sufficient funding.

And I started to believe that maybe our public radio station is more advanced than that of the Philippines when more students started to wow at those audio consoles and flat screen LCDs. Despite the old look of the structure, and somber paint, each studio does have new audio equipment. To help you picture this, think of audio consoles with lots of buttons and LCDs with lots of lines, colorful graphics, or sign waves.

One of the young students was saying that it was all because of corruption. The equipment they saw at their state-owned public radio back home is outdated. Well, if she follows the news about Thailand, she'll learn that corruption has been in fashion in Thailand for so long. Actually, it is the reason why the coup leader said they needed to seize power from the previous government. I'm not saying that we are better than The Philippines or our state-owned radio and television are more advanced than the other country's. In reality, the fact that we have state-of-the-art facilities might not mean anything if we do not make good use of those things. They're just tools that are sitting in air-conditioned rooms.

What we need is good management and ways to stimulate people's thinking through programming. We need shows that help us think. They don't have to be filled with AfterEffect or 3Ds or Motion and those that require long hours of rendering. But they need to have contents that we can relate to, help inspire our kids or young people, empower people or help distribute kindness to the less-fortunate ones.

Since the fall of iTV, maybe it's time we shout what kind of media reform we wish to see, what kind of progress we hope to make and what kind of people we would like to run our ideal television or radio station. It might be good that we are having a messed-up administration when some ministers obey a few people in the media fearing that they might rally against their governance. Maybe it's good that we see some group of hypocrites who claimed they didn't want to run iTV lobbying for it. And it might be great if these hypocrites are eventually awarded the concession if that is the Public Relations Department's final decision. That will be the time we need to see progress in ourselves to learn to yell and shout and stand up for the idea of media reform we long for.