Supinya said the media should truthfully report to the public without any filtration. However, this is a more sensitive issue because the allegation is not only an expression of one opinion, but there is a claim of "fact". It is thus the duty of the media to make the truth known.
"As the government is also involved in the case, media organisations are the only outlets through which the truth can be made known to the public," Supinya said.
And after the truth is brought out, the media has the right to state whether the incident was a political game or not, Supinya added.
Journalism lecturer Pirongrong Ramasoota of Chulalongkorn University agreed with Supinya, saying the media's duty is to present the facts to the public. However, to judge whether an opinion is true or not is not the media's task, but one for the public.
"The public use the media as a vehicle to access the truth," Pirongrong said.
However, to Surat Maetheekul, a former Thammasat University journalism lecturer, this serious social rift only demonstrates the fact the media must exercise caution in reporting to the public. The media, Surat added, should remind themselves that the "facts" of this case, mostly taken from key members of the anti-government group and a figure in the government, were not the whole facts.
"The media should report with thoughtfulness and be careful not to be used as a tool in this information war," said Surat.
Although there is no final consensus on the issue, one thing can be concluded: That the media should not let their concerns or their own judgements either consciously or subconsciously cause them to manipulate the "fact". Their duty is not to judge but to present evidence for opinion making on the part of the public.
Maybe Thanong, Tulsie, Sia Yoon and Sopon should read their own newspaper. They consistently mistake their own personal opinions as fact or think facts are irrelevent to their conspiracy theories masked as anaysis.
It should be fairly easy to find out what is the truth. Arrest the people who attacked the car-- which was a heinous crime, even possibly a assasination attempt-- and identify them as either Red Shirts or government agents.
3 comments:
it really surprised me to read this on NATION (of all !) about "Facts checking". :)
I have already blogged that back on Apr 12th the very Nation itself had min 2 articles which clearly stated that Abhisit was NOT in the car.
apparently they don't even bother to read their own newspaper - as you said.
check it out, the latest Sopon's masterpiece :
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/05/19/opinion/opinion_30102940.php
here is a good website for "facts checking" :
http://www.factreport.go.th/en/
:D
"The Thai government launches a website to respond to 13 April allegations, but forgets to populate it.
The Abhisit government has taken the public opinion war to the Internet by launching a website depicting its versions of events that led up to, and followed the incidents on Songkran day, 13 April...
One almost envisions someone suing the Abhisit government for breaches of copyright or even creative commons share and attribute clauses.
The (joke) site is produced by the Office of the Prime Minister under which Satit Wongnongtoey is the Minister to the PM's Office responsible for media.
The only redeeming feature is that the site uses the Drupal Open Source engine, which is a nice step up from other government run sites. "
(this is a quote from pad blog :
http://www.51am.com/2009/05/thai-government-fails-to-find-facts-on.html )
no wonder that Thai media neither can "find facts" since mostly they copy and paste gov. press-releases. :)
agreed...
identify, arrest and charge the people that actually did the damage
all the blather about different groups and top people is just a smoke screen for avoiding on the ground policing and identification of individuals
the same goes for identifying and charging those that shot the two residents at Nang Lerng!
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