Three TV channels were fined over their hostage-crisis coverage — and none of them saw it as a crisis for themselves

After Thailand's broadcasting regulator imposed administrative penalties on digital television channels for their coverage of the gunman taking hostages in Nakhon Ratchasima, how did those channels communicate with the public, and what machinery did they use to manage the crisis?

Qualitative research in two parts. Documentary research covered every online channel — website, Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter — of the three penalised digital stations from 8 February to 8 April 2020, a two-month window. Alongside this, in-depth interviews were conducted with one decision-maker at each station plus four specialists in crisis communication and media management (two practitioners, two academics), seven interviewees in total.

• Of the three stations, only one communicated about the situation online, posting on its Facebook page on 11 February 2020 — roughly two days after the incident ended — using an apology strategy. The other two carried on promoting programmes and posting news as if nothing had happened.
• That post drew 14,947 reactions, over 3,200 comments and over 1,200 shares. Most comments were negative and critical of the coverage, and the station replied to none of them.
• The interviews revealed a second station had responded on air, where a presenter expressed regret for the discomfort caused — not a full apology — and the clip was not published anywhere else.
• All three stations did not regard the administrative penalty as a crisis for the station, and had no plan, manual, committee, or rehearsal prepared. Crisis handling was run by the newsroom rather than by corporate communications.
• Once they registered the public criticism, the stations toned down their reporting and stopped mobile-phone live streaming immediately, on the day of the incident itself.
• The specialists identified three causes: reporters had no skills for an event unprecedented in Thailand; ratings competition among digital channels pushed them into live reporting from the scene; and Thailand had no manual for covering a mass shooting — the existing crisis manual was drawn from the Tham Luang cave rescue, a very different kind of crisis.
• The specialists argued the work belongs with corporate communications rather than the newsroom, because the newsroom is itself a party to the dispute and may be biased or defensive. They recommended standing up a war room with pre-agreed thresholds for assessing a situation, and a full apology to the hostages, their families, viewers and society.

The finding that generalises beyond broadcasters is the gap between what the regulator treats as a crisis and what the organisation treats as one. If the organisation does not count it as a crisis, nobody is assigned to it, no plan exists, and the response becomes an explanation of one's own working procedures rather than an apology — which, this study shows, did nothing to reduce the criticism.