the(new)mediaslut

Smartbrain was recently sent this article on the Wall Street Journal Asia with a simple question: Is it biased reporting or is something missing? Well, Mr Mahmud, it is not as bad as most BBC reports which Smartbrain feels are hopeless biased in favour of Thaksin, but there are some glaring errors and some misleading phrases here and there.

Two years after the Thai military ousted then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the full cost of that bloodless coup is finally becoming clear. Violent antigovernment protests this week have left two people dead, 443 injured, and the country’s democratic prospects in jeopardy.

The protests were never violent. It was the crackdown that was violent and totally unexpected. Manager has clips here that clearly show a peaceful rally with a speaker on stage when police suddenly opened fire with teargas without any warning.

They now call themselves the People’s Alliance for Democracy, but they are anything but. Their goal is to eliminate Thailand’s one-man-one-vote democracy and replace it with a parliament that is 30% elected and 70% appointed. Why? To make sure that no one like Mr. Thaksin is ever elected again.

Nope. 100% elected, but with a portion directly elected, and another elected from within the same profession. That means, a doctor would get one direct vote and another vote for the “doctor” category. A bit of a mess, but it is not appointed.

The PPP may not be perfect, but it has a mandate from the voters. A vote-buying case against the PPP and two smaller parties will be brought to court next week, and a guilty verdict could force the PPP to dissolve. Until then, it remains the popularly elected government.

Slightly off here. The case against the PPP’s executive has after many months already been concluded and he has been found guilty of vote-buying. So the case against the PPP is more of technicality rather than a proper case in that respect. The constitution says that if a party executive board member knows of fraud in his party and does not stop it, the party is to be disbanded. The MP in question is a party executive board member and it would be hard to argue that he does not know what he is doing.

The PAD is crying foul over the measures employed by what they call a “killer” government. But they themselves operate like a small army: Several PAD supporters were carrying guns during the street battle on Tuesday, and others had iron rods, slingshots, spears, etc. One policeman was impaled, and two were shot.

Nothing really wrong here (though personally Smartbrain did not see any PAD guns or spears), but please, can we have a bit of perspective here? One policeman was impaled, two were shot. Meanwhile 440-ish (depending on the source) protesters were injured and two killed. Injured here means needing medical treatment, not just those who were gassed like Smartbrain.

He could also hunker down and wait for the PAD to wear out — although this could take a long time, seeing as the PAD is constantly rotating in new “protesters” from the countryside.

“Protesters” with quotation marks? So if they are not real protesters, what are they? Smartbrain has been protesting there for four days straight now but has taken this night off out of exhaustion.

Smartbrain wonders who wrote this piece. If he is based in Bangkok, one might accuse him of bias, but if it is out of Hong Kong or another place not quite here, then perhaps it is just plain vanilla ignorance.