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Lt Gen Sansern Kaewkamnerd, chief and propaganda and information for the junta. He has 'requested cooperation' in providing puffery and flattering news coverage of cabinet ministers, who control licences and some revenue streams from the TV stations.

The Prayut Chan-o-cha government is back in the eye of the storm for all for the wrong reasons. This time all eyes are on the mobile cabinet meeting set to take place tomorrow and Tuesday in Nakhon Ratchasima after government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd openly admitted that he had "requested" television stations to do "scoops" focusing on ministers attending the meeting.

Lt Gen Sansern, who is also chief of the Public Relations Department, defended his cooperation request by saying that each TV station has its strengths and the government wanted stations to do scoops in areas where they are strong. For example, if TV stations are strong on social issues, they should follow ministers who are responsible for that aspect.

Although one can forgive Lt Gen Sansern for his good intentions towards the government, notwithstanding the fact that it could be construed as media intimidation, the execution of this process was flawed from the start.

Umesh Pandey is Editor, Bangkok Post.

The complete list of which stations were contacted is not yet known, but a list obtained by the Bangkok Post showed that 16 television stations had agreed to the request. Channel 3, 5, 7, MCOT, Thai PBS, Channel 8, Mono 29, TNN, New 18 TV, True4U, One, GMM 25, Nation TV, Thai Rath TV, NBT and NBT World registered to do exclusives on 18 topics.

If one was wondering whether the people in charge of seeking cooperation had specific TV stations in mind or was it random, well, these people had not done their homework because they contacted my staff to figure out if the Bangkok Post has a TV station. These officials were not aware that the Bangkok Post was lucky not to win the digital television bidding war that has become the cause of pain for the entire industry.

With broadcast media suffering, it is understandable that any request for cooperation from those who hold the key to licence payments and advertising revenue from the government's budget would lead to reluctant agreement from TV stations.

Most of the broadcast media houses are facing mounting losses and many are on the brink of going belly up, while some have already given up their hopes of revival. Therefore, such requests for cooperation usually end up being accepted and camouflaged as news coverage.

These kinds of requests come from both military and civilian governments. There have been some extreme cases in the past when cooperation requests did not work. In the early 2000s the Bangkok Post became a target for doing its job and reports emerged that then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra through his proxies wanted to take control of the company in order to control the newspaper's content.

The takeover battle failed and the integrity of our publication remained intact, but how one wades through these requests is the job of the editor of each media house.

There are many countries that have buckled under the pressure of companies or families that own media outlets, but others have managed to maintain their integrity and dignity and become immensely successful even as social media threatens to kill this industry.

In today's world where readers' and viewers' attention spans are so short that one needs to rethink ways of presenting news to the public, selling your soul to either the government or advertisers is only going to kill the industry at a faster pace. Kneeling to pressure from these requests will only diminish the trust and faith that readers and viewers have of that media house, and therefore speed up their decline.

Those requesting cooperation should also realise that the trend of news consumption is changing. The media outlets they are trying to influence are the only ones that require government licences to operate, and at times they may heed requests, but there is a much bigger world of news outlets on the internet that is totally beyond their control. The government has been trying to rein in those outlets for years but has been unsuccessful.

It is therefore best to let the traditional media houses do their job and not try to control their work or else the government will become part of the reason for their demise.

Traditional media houses struggling to find their right place in the new media landscape should also realise that their acceptance of requests for cooperation by the likes of Lt Gen Sansern or advertisers could be the final nail in their coffin.

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Twisting media's arm will backfire - Bangkok Post