Dichan gets it right side up with protest coverage

It’s got People’s Democratic Reform Council sweetheart Chitpas “Tant” Kridakorn on the cover.
Word of the media coup leaked last month after Tant posted behind-the-scenes photos from the fashion shoot on Instagram and asked her “fans” to give the magazine some support.
Now that the issue has hit the stands, her PDRC colleague Akanat Promphan has come up with a way to promote it, posting a photo online of him reading the magazine. The genius in Akanat’s promotion is that he’s holding the magazine upside down.
Folks notice quirky stuff like that, and sure enough the foes of the Shinawatra dynasty were soon widely circulating the picture.
But wait, there’s more! It’s not only Tant on the cover of Dichan. Inside there’s an interview with protest leader Anchalee “Pong” Paileerat, the first such interview she’s given, apparently. Pong serves as the regular emcee on the PDRC rally stage as well as having her own morning talk show on Bluesky TV. Pong didn’t need the social networks’ help or a goose from clever promotion to turn people’s attention to the magazine – she played it up on her own time.
“It’s my first full interview about my life,” she told her TV audience, and added with a giggle that they should flip the magazine pages from the back to find her because her bit is buried deep. “Open the magazine like you read a Chinese book and that will help!”

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Bye-bye Bang-kok
Even the best parties must come to an end, but don’t try saying that to console long-time fans of the weekly magazine Bangkok, for which the March 31 edition will be the last. The periodical has been a friend of the masses for almost six decades.
It debuted in 1958 and was the city’s top-selling magazine by the ’80s. To this day it has retained the old spelling (in Thai) of the capital’s name on its masthead – pronounced as though it has a hyphen between the syllables, like they used to say the city’s name in the ’50s.
When Bangkok celebrated its 50th anniversary four years ago it thanked its loyal readers with eight extra pages – at no extra charge.
The format was always popular, mixing serialised novels with short stories, some of which proved excellent fodder for show business. The action-packed fictional yarn “Chumpae” has been made and remade as hit television series. And the stories were often so great that the magazine deserves credit for instilling solid reading habits among its devotees, even those in low income brackets. Meanwhile it’s provided a platform from which emerging novelists’ careers have been launched.
On the other hand, the magazine’s editorial style and layout hasn’t exactly kept pace with the times, so its closure comes as no surprise – though of course there are many who say its refusal to change was one of its merits and will be saddened deeply by its demise.
Author-publisher Viranut Rojaprapha, who also created the Baan Aree Foundation, has offered no such word yet, but we do hope that “the magazine with the cool name” might be reincarnated at some point in the future. Viranut inherited the magazine from his father, Vichit, and it would be great to see another generation carry on – even if it’s only in ebook form.