Bodhi Mandala

I wrote this as a reflection from stories I heard told by an NGO at a conference I attended in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand in 2018. Suphachai owns a money exchange counter at the corner of a heavily trafficked walkway in a Bangkok mall. His business is good but not brisk unless the high travel season kicks on. On the last Thursday of every month in the last year or so, a lady would drop by his counter to send money back to her hometown in Udon Thani province. The amount she sends is always the same, 20,000 baht. One Thursday she came by Suphachai's counter as usual. This time she was only sending 15,000 baht. "Not the usual?", Suphachai asked. "No, this time business not good," she replied as she heaved a big sigh. Suphachai guessed she worked in one of the massage parlor nearby, one which he got correct. "It's not enough", she says. And then she broke: "It is never enough." Soon the whine turned to sobs and the tears started flowing. "I...

I wrote this for the Buddhist Channel on September 11, 2018 just after attending the Buddhist Media Conclave held in New Delhi, 2018   Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? – also called the six sigma of information gathering are the tools taught at basic journalism schools. Every budding reporting cadet are drilled to probe issues and to deeply investigate using these methods. But like any other tools, it is the intent of its use that decides the outcome of the application. In many cases, these “intent” is the agenda of the tool owners. These intent masks what Is known as media bias, which include (but not exclusive to) conservative bias, corporate bias, liberal bias and mainstream bias. Many news outlets today openly declare that they stand for unbiased truth and transparency yet packages their presentation to suit the needs of their targeted readers or listeners, leading to what is often called as post truth politics. If one turns on, say CNN (the USA), BBC (the UK), CCTV (China...