One Picture is Worth a Thousand Lies
Fri, 19/06/2009 - 13:18 | by prachatai
The Mass Media Photographers Association of Thailand has given its award for Best Photo of the Year to a photograph taken by Thai Rath’s crime reporter Prasith Niwesthong during the Songkran violence.
His picture captured the moment when a resident of the Din Daeng flats, incensed at the parking of a gas tanker in the street outside, grabbed a red shirt woman by the hair and dragged her along the ground.
Except that the photo was doctored.
Other photos taken of the incident (which the Mass Media Photographers Association must have felt lacked the ‘outstanding and complete’ qualities of the winner ‘in terms of photographical composition’) show clearly that the man doing the dragging has a camera and camera case hanging round his neck.
The camera and case have been photo-shopped out of the ‘complete’ award-winning picture.
Now how many Din Daeng residents, disgruntled or not, would you expect to bring their camera along to express their feelings?
But the caption was a complete fabrication in other ways.
The photo was taken not at Din Daeng, but on Ratchaprarob Road and had nothing to do with the gas tankers. But that wouldn’t have fit Thai Rath’s headlines, so in the interests of award-winning journalism, the truth, sadly, had to be sacrificed.
So if he wasn’t an angry resident, who was he? And if it wasn’t connected with the gas tankers incident, what got him so ticked off?
Thai Rath didn’t bother to find out. Thai journalistic standards don’t seem to rank establishing the facts very highly. At least not nearly as high as a nice ‘photographical composition’ that will win a prize for your criminal reporter. I mean, crime reporter.
But the internet community did find out.
It turns out that his name is Kaweekrai Chokepatthanakasemsuk and he has a Hi5 account called ‘thaksindeathsoon’. So no prizes for guessing why he thinks violence against red shirts is an absolutely cracking idea. He happens to be a PAD guard and was interviewed by the PAD propagandists who don’t seem a jot embarrassed to have a self-confessed thug on their payroll.
Now re-touching photographs for political purposes has a long and, thanks to the Mass Media Photographers Association, obviously honourable tradition in Thailand.
On October 4 1976, students at Thammasat staged a re-enactment of the hanging of 2 anti-dictatorship protestors who had been killed by the police in Nakhon Pathom. On October 5, photos of the incident, carefully re-touched to bring out a faint resemblance of one of the actors to the Crown Prince, appeared in the Bangkok press. The right-wing went ballistic at this blatant, albeit bogus, example of lèse majesté, and on October 6, dozens of students were publicly hanged, burned and mutilated and thousands were summarily carted off to jail.
Or were they?
Apart from eye-witness accounts (and we all know how unreliable those can be), personal testimony (obviously self-serving), and documentary evidence from the time (easily falsified), those of us who weren’t actually present at the mayhem have relied on photographs of the lynchings.
But former Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, who was there or thereabouts (he was one of the ballistic right-wingers), has claimed that only one student was killed and that was his own fault for being a communist.
(Incidentally, the police who murdered the two protestors, the newspaper editors who edited their copy with such careful deliberation, the mobs guilty of public atrocities, and even Samak himself, all escaped punishment. The only people who ended up in the cells that night were the ones protesting in the name of democracy. Thai justice seems to operate by much the same moral standards as the Thai press.)
Maybe all the photographs and footage that were supposedly shot at the time were doctored by the Thai media in a valiant attempt to win a professional award and the massacre of October 6, one of the landmarks of recent Thai history, was no such thing.
I mean, who would you rather trust? The Thai press or the word of a Prime Minister?
About author: Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).
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Both "doctored" pictures
Both "doctored" pictures cited in your article win the best photo of all time in my private scrapbook. They both represent the landmark events of their time( though thirty years apart) I'm always curious, as whether these facts will be recorded in the history books. There're a lot of mysterious things in Thai history. But does any historians care enough and be courageous enough to set things right?
We seem to be wallowing in a
We seem to be wallowing in a pig sty, if one were to be blunt for a passing moment. It seems each day things only become more ridiculous and more degenerate. It's a global phenomenon sometimes, but here in Thailand the illusion, professing of justice, goodness, merit and purity, to name a few, is part of a terribly inexcusable culture.
On October 4 1976, students
On October 4 1976, students at Thammasat staged a re-enactment of the hanging of 2 anti-dictatorship protestors who had been killed by the police in Nakhon Pathom. On October 5, photos of the incident, carefully re-touched to bring out a faint resemblance of one of the actors to the Crown Prince, appeared in the Bangkok press. The right-wing went ballistic at this blatant, albeit bogus, example of lèse majesté, and on October 6, dozens of students were publicly hanged, burned and mutilated and thousands were summarily carted off to jail.
Don't ever forget that one of the two Thai papers that printed that bogus photo for the military was The Bangkok Post. Birds of a feather still flock together.
Thai rad is making a stroy
Thai rad is making a stroy always and do it for their own. Not for yellow. And this is just a fighting between a brother and a sisiter if you would compare it with the violence on yellow, if his mind is really clear. What is the big deal in here if you comparied with the red violence in which they killed the old guy in Chiang Mai, or beat with a iron stick a lady who were lying on the ground when they atacked them in Udon? Frnakly I don't understand the author's point. I don't say yellow did not use any violence, but redarding the intensity of the violence, the red has been the winner cearlly. I have never seen this author criticized the violence of the red. Harrison, think again about your nuetrality. Yeah, yeah, I know you don't care it. Maybe his only concern is to look good in the eyes of some progressive guys. Very cheap.
Alex, you have been silent.
Alex, you have been silent. Look forward to seeing yr comment. This article is just excellent. i remember six months or so ago, i was searching for book froma library shelf (the library is not in Thailand) and i saw pictures of the atrocities committed in Oct 1976 (real pictures ). I think no one could refrain from losing tears when looking at those pictures-- young students being murdered and tortured at the hands of their fellow countrymen. I'm not romanticizing or idealizing these youths of the 1976 but no one deserves such a brutal treatment. Where are the murderers and those who allowed such atrocities to take place or those who deliberately refused to intervene? ??I'm sure many of them or their descendants still enjoy wealth and privileges in Thai society. I'm not saying that children should be punished for their parents; crime but the crime should not be forgotten and those who committed them must at least feel guilty and remorse and not allowed to see themselves as 'patriots' who committed crime just because they want to protect the 'establishment'.
How would you feel if you had
How would you feel if you had to duck your head low to the ground in order to keep it safe from the bullets flying from all directions, saw your fellows got hit and knew not what to do to save them, saw some of them beaten and burnt ( some still alive at the very moment ), saw one was dragged around the field with a rope tied on his neck, saw someone beating a dead body( by being hanged on the tree ).
Do you think you can simply close your eyes and told yourself this is just a nightmare and soon be over. This is the thing that haunted me for thirty years. I'm not looking for vengeance ( as Thongchai stated many times before ), I just wish it will never happen again. Just simply wish people can learn from this lesson, on how to live together in a more civilised way. Do I ask for too much?
Somsak I think HG's point is,
Somsak
I think HG's point is, this photo had been deliberately 'doctored' and the message in the caption was also 'twisted' in order to serve a certain purpose( which depends on how you 'interpret' it ). He didn't agree with a explicit 'bogus' photo winning the award from MPA. It's obvious in his article.
I quite agree with your comment on the violence inflicted by both red and yellow. But the violence is NOT the point HG made his protest.
BTW, in my personal view, this 'bogus' picture is still the best photo of the year! Though with a different set of reasons. The violence captured in the picture told me a complete story of the passing year. The 'bogus' process did indeed reminds me of certain 'hidden' agenda behind the picture, the same as the 'doctored' photo of two Thammasat students in 1976. That means some wicked power still prevails after thirty years. To make it short, this is the best 'twisted' fact of the year and deserves a place in my scrapbook. And add another 'must tell' story for me to my children when the right time comes.
I just wish it will never
I just wish it will never happen again. Just simply wish people can learn from this lesson, on how to live together in a more civilised way. Do I ask for too much?
Lessening the importance of 'face' would go a long way to ensuring such things never happen again - but how do you change a culture???
Thanks Dr J. You comments
Thanks Dr J. You comments speak so well and i can fully sympathize with u by simply reading them.
I agree with Hobby: the overly concern abt 'face'...it permeates all circles/arenas in Thai society ...
Dr.J My point is that Thai
Dr.J
My point is that Thai Rath is always doing this kind of thing to make their stories more interesting. The motivation is not a political one, and there is little consipiracy among Thai media to discredit the red. The Prachatai's obsession of this "hair grabbing" is too much for me. Has Prachatai ever reported the inceidet in which the red male supporters hit repeatedly ,with iron sticks, a yellow woman lying uncousious when they attacked the yellow rally in Udon?(This is a real violence) I think Prachatai's interest on this "hair grabbing violence" which you can often see in elementary schools is out of propotion to the real importance of the matter. Besides, do you really think that the people in Din Deng apartment were happy with the red when they brought gas tracks to their place and intimidated that they would blow up if their demands were not met? Some of the residents even shot the red, and gun fighting took place at that time, because the reds shot back. (I think this is a real violence)
I may agree with you at the point that the picture is the best one to descrive the nature of the conflict between red and yeallow. They are so childish, like elementary school students. The picture show their childishness very well.
Somsak: I'm not so convinced
Somsak:
I'm not so convinced that Thai Rath did 'this' for merely 'flavoring up' its headline news. The editor was sure to aware of the impact on politics at that time. I still favor the idea of hidden political agenda. (you can call it, my conspiracy theory, yes : ) )
Let me reiterate my dissents of the violence inflicted by BOTH camps. And their 'childish' acts casted catastrophe to the whole society in a way beyond their imagination. If the one inflicts violence will win, then it will become a BAD model for the coming generations. How can I teach my children about 'nonviolence', when the one that breach it, win !!!!