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Monday, June 15, 2009

BANGKOK POST AND ITS OWN 'SHOCKING' PIC

The front page of the Bangkok Post's website was recently carrying what I would describe as a disturbing image of the bloodstained body of a monk who was killed late last week in the south of the country. (See update below). A similar image was published on the front page of Saturday's edition of Thai Rath.
Given last week's
call by assistant editor Sanitsuda Ekachai for "moral outrage" over the publishing of shocking pictures in the Thai media, the decision to display this particular image in a prime position online seems strange at best and hypocritical at worst.

UPDATE: In the hour since this post appeared The Bangkok Post has changed the leading image and story. This is not uncommon as changes to top news are usually made at various times throughout the day. To see what was appearing you should click the image above.

4 comments:

Dudeist 5:08 PM  

Lets take the images of road traffic accidents displayed in Thai Rath. The only reason they display them is for vicarious entertainment. A kind of accident porn.

Putting up images of, lets say, the girl running down the road covered in napalm in the Vietnam war is completely and entirely different.

The former practice has no context nor ethics driving it.

The latter is firmly in context to show the full horrors of war.

To even judge the two by the same moral code is completely disingenuous.

Matthew Hunt 5:10 PM  

Not really hypocritical IMHO, as Sanitsuda is a columnist but she doesn't write the leader column.

(Personally, I think Sanitsuda over-reacts to this and other issues.)

Mat.

(c) 2016 Written by Andrew Batt 5:46 PM  

Dudeist. Good points.

So how would you view the images of Carradine that Thai Rath published? In the public interest or just of interest to the public? (.. assuming of course those images were genuine, which is another story altogether).

Dudeist 1:40 AM  

I thought the images of Carradine were appalling.

It was an attempt to "save face" in my book.

Famous farang dies and it's international news.

Thais very very quick to show he is "bad pervert farang" rather than offer proper investigation and preserve this person's dignity.

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