The journalists peeling back Myanmar’s iron curtain

Chiang Mai | From the outside, it looks like a regular house in the Thai suburbs, where helmetless moped riders criss-cross the narrow roads and alleyways surrounding it and an inconspicuous shed sits just inside the front fence.

Yet what’s different about this house is it has two TV studios and a room full of the latest broadcasting equipment. 

It’s the headquarters of Mizzima, an independent Burmese media company now exiled after the 2021 military coup.

Formerly one of the most prominent media organisations in the country, it’s been reduced to several rooms in this house on the outskirts of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, with a handful of much smaller offices elsewhere in Thailand and India.

But this small operation still packs a punch, reaching 32 million people a year through its television and radio channels, while its social media accounts on Facebook and Youtube boast 21.5 million and 2.8 million subscribers respectively.

The Chiang Mai bureau is not like a newsroom you’d see in Australia. A dog greets you at the entrance, shoes are to be taken off at the door, and throughout the day there is the repeated crowing of a neighbour’s rooster from a pen right under one of the windows.

It has an egalitarian set up, where editors are seen more or less as the equals of journalists and content producers, and it is ideas-based rather than looking to meet a set quota of stories.

“[Editors] produce a story idea and discuss with our reporter, ‘hey this issue is very interesting, so we should make the story,’” said Saw Pe, one of Mizzima’s editors.

Saw Pe — not his real name — has been working in the Burmese media since 2006. At some of Myanmar’s biggest news outlets, he’s seen the transition from a time where news media organisations struggled under military rule and a lack of internet access for its citizens, to the relative flourishing of independent media organisations as democracy returned to the country in 2011.

It marked a huge change for a country which has been among the lowest ranked countries for media freedom from the second half of the 20th century onwards. Myanmar currently ranks 171 among 180 countries, according to the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF).

“From 1962, to brief change in 1988 and then until 2011, the press freedom was non-existent in the country, so it was very difficult for the independent media to operate at the time,” said Aleksandra Bielakowska, the advocacy manager for RSF Asia-Pacific branch, based in Taipei.

The “brief change” she referred to is the 8888 Uprising, where student protests across Burma sparked a coup d’etat amid dreams of democracy, though this was quickly dashed as the military continued to hold power in the country.

Bielakowska said the uprising continued to have a long term impact on media in the country.

“In a way [it] created a movement for the new generation to start writing and think that journalism is very important and one of the paths for democratisation. It was the first time in 26 years that people managed to go around the censorship and try to basically report what is going on on the ground,” she said.

It was in this brief moment in time in which Mizzima was founded by student protesters.

The two founders were Soe Myint and Thin Thin Aung, who fled after the uprising as authorities clamped down on protests.

Pretending a bar of soap was a bomb, Myint and another man hijacked a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok to Yangon in 1990, forcing it to divert to India where he sought asylum.

“He founded Mizzima to [give a] voice [to the people]. He wanted to take attention from the international community,” Naw Seng, lead researcher at Mizzima, said.

“He hijacked a plane from Bangkok to New Delhi, he used a fake bomb… he’s just a fake terrorist, so they can negotiate with the authorities, and finally he showed their real intention to the authorities.”

Indian authorities jailed the pair, before releasing them on bail, and it was not until 2003 that they were bought to trial. Both were acquitted for lack of evidence.

“Of course they got arrested, and one of the Indian lawyers… helped these students to get off from that case,” said Seng. “And they set up the first office… in New Delhi.”

Seng said the first years of operation were difficult for Mizzima as they struggled for funding and support compared to other media organisations in the country.

“They had to struggle really, at the beginning… because there’s already DVB [Democratic Voice for Burma] and other media [organisations that were] already prominent in Myanmar,” he said.

“DVB had very strong backup… they’re funded by the Norwegian government.”

Mizzima, he said, gained traction during the 2007 Saffron Revolution, a series of protests against the political and economic climate, as their on-ground coverage was widely lauded and won them the International Press Institute Free Media Pioneer Award.

Journalists could freely report on many subjects, but some of them need to self censor…

With democratisation finally coming in 2011 and the media censorship laws and committees disappearing, media organisations like Mizzima were granted licenses by the government and were able to gain income through advertising.

For the first time in half a century, the country had independent media, and multiple organisations were able to flourish as a result. But looking beyond the facade, there was still significant pressure from the government to avoid reporting on certain matters.

Saw Pe said the government was still able to sue journalists or publications if they did not approve of what they were reporting, and recalls many instances of this occurring many times.

“If they don’t like the news, they sue a media, or journalist, or editor,” he said.

“Sometimes they sue our editorial members — 14 editors [were] sued by the court. That means we don’t respect the court… it wasn’t easy when the democratic government [came to power]… because they sued journalists so many times.”

Bielakowska said it was a ‘golden time’ for the media in the country, but there were some notable instances where journalists received heavy penalties for reporting against the government or the military

“In general, we see this period as the period of hope, movement to good direction, where media outlets could go back to the country, where they set up new newspapers, new websites, where people who are living in exile… could go back and start really reporting on this happening, without a direct threat of being in prison for many years of being killed for what they do,” she said.

“Until they breached some taboo topics, like [the] Rohingya case, when there were two journalists in prison for 500 days, Reuters journalists at the time, which was a blow to press freedom.

“Or during the COVID-19 situation, when in 2020 a few media websites were banned and basically censored by the government.

“Journalists could freely report on many subjects, but some of them need to self censor, because they couldn’t, for instance, report on what [the] military is doing, or focus on specific religion or ethnic groups issues, because they could face imprisonment for that.”

Then came February 2021, and suddenly they couldn’t report at all.

Mizzima was one of 15 news outlets who had their license to report in the country revoked, and their office in Yangon raided. 

Seng estimates 70 per cent of the Mizzima staff fled together to Thailand, whilst others stayed behind to continue reporting: “They moved to the jungle, they do [work] temporarily in the KNU [Karen National Union] controlled area.”

Saw Pe was not employed by Mizzima at the time, but he was working as a fact checker in the misinformation team for his previous employer Channel K, where one of his colleagues was arrested for flying a drone. His colleague was then interrogated, and Saw Pe became worried he may be entangled in the process.

“After the coup they are afraid, because there are so many attacks, so they arrested him,” he said. 

“I’m worried… in the meantime I live in the… jungle, so in my area there’s so many times I’m [a] suspect, because my friend is in the interrogation process.

“[I think] I’m not safe, so I [tell] Mizzima ‘I’m not safe in Yangon, so let me come to Chiang Mai.”

It took him some time to get to Thailand, so he briefly was one of the Mizzima journalists who worked in the jungle, where he and his colleagues suffered from power shortages and the constant presence of the military.

He left behind his wife and young daughter; his wife is also a journalist, but ironically she works for the Eleven Media Group, which is closely affiliated with the military.

“She didn’t believe it [the ideology] but because we have [a] daughter, we have to find money for education,” he said.

He said they are in contact everyday via phone, and because his wife reunited with her parents, he doesn’t have to worry as much; he also gives half of his salary to her.

In the months after the coup, RSF estimates 60 media organisations fled abroad to continue working in exile — mostly in Thailand — some 300 journalists.

Seven journalists have been killed, which is a high number in Asia, according to Bielakowska.

She also said journalists face many issues, especially those who work on a freelance basis.

“Most of them [are] without legal status and health insurance, living in extremely low revenue, threatened to lose employment and also to be forced out from Thailand without legal papers,” she said.

She said the mostly citizen journalists remaining in the country face all sorts of threats and dangers, too.

Last year we had [a] shortage of funding… the shortage is very hard, impossible to keep going [like this]. 

“There are around 200 journalists still operating in Myanmar secretly,” she said. “Very often they need to cross the border between Thailand and Myanmar — illegally — which is very dangerous. 

“They are faced with the threat of being arrested, tortured, killed by the junta, but they also very often are not protected by the rebellion forces, which is also very important.

“The junta is losing half of the country and it’s in the hands of other forces in different regions. [It] doesn’t mean that they are still safe. Very often they cannot report [freely] on what is happening, because military forces on the other side also don’t want to reveal too much information.”

Of course, Mizzima faces many hurdles reporting in exile.

Despite Thailand offering them refuge and remaining a relatively passive presence, they are not recognised as an official media organisation, meaning they are solely reliant on the support of NGO’s and donations from members of the public.

“Almost 90 per cent of [our income] comes from the NGO’s,” Seng said. “Of course, few of the donations we also receive from Youtube or somewhere, maybe that will be under 10 per cent.

“Last year we had [a] shortage of funding… the shortage is very hard, impossible to keep going [like this]. 

“The NGO’s [are] very clear if they have a funding budget to provide us. [They will tell us] if they cannot provide anymore… they will notify us that we have to find another source of funding.”

Seng admits there have been occasions where Mizzima has been unsure of its long term viability due to its financial situation.

As well as paying all the staff, they also have to fund their media training institute inside Myanmar, where they aim to mentor and find the next generation of journalists in the country.

The program, which began in 2022, is organised by James*, who himself was a prisoner in Myanmar for seven months after the coup.

“After [the] coup, journalist training [doesn’t happen] inside Myanmar, so most people are struggling to [read] and use the news. We cannot get news from Myanmar, so for this purpose we started the journalist training,” he said.

The camp is located at a secret location within Karen State; the area is controlled by the KNU, meaning they are relatively protected from the military on the ground, but still have to be wary of airstrikes.

There are many safety precautions taken; interviews are conducted with potential trainees to see if it safe for them to circumvent the military checkpoints en route to the camp, and everything must be deleted off phones and computers at the completion of the course.

Citizen journalists become very crucial to keep reporting what is really happening in the respective regions…

They try to have a batch of trainees every six months, with each batch sponsored by organisations such as UNESCO, as well as the Polish and Irish Embassies. Exiled Burmese journalists will go back to the country to lecture in person, while foreign experts will also teach in person or remotely.

The financial pinch is hitting, though, with the most recent batch unable to go ahead due to funding issues.

James and Mizzima are passionate about keeping the program running due to its importance in maintaining independent news coverage in the country now most professional journalists have been hounded out of Myanmar.

“Citizen journalists become very crucial to keep reporting what is really happening in the respective regions,” he said. “This training is focused on the civilian journalists, because we really want to promote the respective regional news, that’s why we [recruit] across the country.”

The new wave of citizen journalism is crucial in Myanmar’s new media landscape, with social media in particular being a powerful tool.

RSF estimates 1,000 citizen journalists are currently on the ground in Myanmar, alongside 300 professional journalists still bravely remaining; Mizzima themselves have two embedded in the country.

That Myanmar continues to languish near the bottom of the World Press Freedom Index shows the barriers facing both citizen journalists domestically and those fighting the fight in exile.

The coup and subsequent protests and clampdown in Myanmar made international headlines in 2021, with the world shocked by reports of the military killing its own people. Yet as the global geopolitical situation has become more unstable, Myanmar has faded from memory.

After years of darkness, the Burmese people saw light for a brief moment, yet the junta has brought down an iron curtain over the country that journalists, like those at Mizzima, are giving the rest of the world a peek behind.

They see their job as not only to tell the people of Myanmar what is happening in their country, but to keep their country in the consciousness of the west.

Saw Pe said they want to send a simple message: “Please, don’t forget Myanmar.

“Don’t forget my people. They are surviving, OK?”

*This is not his real name. We have used a pseudonym to protect his identity

Main image by Patrick Brischetto

UTS journalism students travelled to Thailand as part of The Foreign Correspondent Study Tour, a University of Technology Sydney programme supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s New Colombo Plan, and working with Chiang Mai University strategic communications students in association with Chiang Mai University.

@PatBrischetto