The cast and crew of Shallow News in Depth, Thailand’s leading online satirical news show, are relishing the fruits of their success: a roomy new studio. The cameraman no longer has to use plastic water bottles as counterweights. The news desk doesn’t look like it was borrowed from a school.
“This is only the second time we’ve filmed here,” says host Winyu Wongsurawat, from behind his trademark wraparound sunglasses. “Before we just used to shoot in a whitewashed corner of a room.”
Winyu founded Shallow News in Depth as a pet project with his sister Janya in 2008. The show’s audience has grown steadily. Each episode now attracts about 250,000 views on YouTube and generates enough advertising revenue to help fund a full-time team of 40 and, since October, the new studio. The show, with its zany animations and pre-recorded jingles, provides a madcap voice of reason amid Thailand’s fractious political scene. “We want young people to understand the news,” says the 29-year-old Winyu, who before stardom flipped from studying performing arts to political science. “So we thought to have a show that is easy and fun.”
It is also courageous. Following six months of deadly pro- and anti-government demonstrations, Thailand’s military staged a coup on May 22. The junta has since detained more than 200 journalists, academics and activists. Nevertheless, Shallow News in Depth refuses to pull its punches, recently mocking specific government officials who have accrued enormous personal wealth despite their modest wages. So far, Winyu has somehow escaped the generals’ ire. “We just don’t know if the military get our jokes,” he says.
The Bangkok Post dubbed Winyu’s frenetic style “Jon Stewart on crack,” after the host of American satirical news program The Daily Show. “Winyu’s not shouting at the screen, as Stewart often does, and his criticism of individuals is less direct,“ says Dan Waites, author of CultureShock! Bangkok, a book on Thai etiquette and sensibilities. “But if you understand the context, and read between the lines, it’s hilarious and damning stuff.”