Even as the World Watched II: Tasting the Kool-Aid

Published: 05 July 2010
Chiang Mai, Thailand

This journalist was all over the place.  She stood out from the crowd for obvious reasons.  One evening, as the sun was setting, she was walking down a mostly desolate street not far from Dusit Thani hotel, and she was alone with that little camera.  Soldiers were here and there, and I thought, “That’s a brave woman.” She walked by and I never said hello.  On another day, she walked by and I was talking with some journalist whose name I never got, and said that if she took off that helmet and body armor you might think she is just another pretty face, but she’s not just another pretty face, is she?  The journalist said that he had once seen her at another time, and she was curled up on the ground, sleeping by a trash can, and he said she is a brave one indeed.

On another day there had been much fighting and some journalists were out in the middle of it but I did not go to the middle.  I watched from the edges as a writer instead of a photographer, but this one apparently had dived in because he was sweating and more covered in soot than this photo seems to reveal.

Despite the danger, witnesses were out there, seemingly by the hundreds.

Often the journalists waited, as do soldiers.

(Note: Photos in this dispatch are not in chronological or “geographic” order, but are ordered thematically.  This is not a comprehensive accounting of the Bangkok fighting.  There are probably thousands of accounts online.)

This was a strange battle area.  Surrounded by modern buildings, nice hotels and the trappings of a modern city, you could dive into a 7-Eleven for a cold drink.  I tried to buy tampons in case of bullet wounds but tampons are hard to come by in Thailand, so, having left my gear in Afghanistan, I bought pads instead.

Any helmet was better than none.  Protestors often used slingshots with iron ingots, lugnuts, marbles and rocks.

Cameras everywhere.

The world was watching.

Nowhere to hide.

Must have been hundreds of journalists from many countries.

This is Nattha Komolvadhin from Thai PBS.  There was some fighting going on here this day.  I got to talk with her at length during an interview much later.  Very sharp journalist complete with a PhD.

There was fighting just here on the street.

Journalists wore green armbands.  This man was also wearing a red cross.  Maybe he was playing it double safe, but the best insurance against getting shot is to not be here, or to wear body armor.

Base of Dusit Thani hotel.

Was hot but not as bad as Afghanistan or Iraq.

Often it was hard to tell if they were journalists, tourists or maybe soldiers undercover.  Saw some guys who looked far too fit and military to be journalists, and they wore the same types of shoes.

Rama IV road just near Lumpini Park.

Skirmishes happened in many places over a period of weeks.  I was there only about ten days.  My guess was that freelancers and those from small companies were mostly without body armor.

After bullets started flying, numerous journalists at different times sought cover behind this green box.

Most amazing is how quickly information was flowing.  Every decent phone is a camera.  Facebook.  Twitter.  Real-time vignettes flew around the world far faster than bullets.

With war reporting, the danger levels usually go like this:  Most dangerous is video work.  Second is still photography.  Third is writing.  Safest might be painting: I say this because a famous British fine artist once painted soldiers straight off my photos -- without my knowledge or authorization -- indicating she had been in battles she had never seen.  She was making gobs of money in a London art gallery while getting significant international press, all while pretending to have been there.    (Amazing that a famous painter would rip-off an internationally known photographer apparently while expecting to not get caught.)

With still photography you can, at times at least, reach around and get a quick shot.  But there are those pesky rules of combat: if you can see them, they can see you.  If you can hit them, they can hit you.

With video, the gear often is bigger and it takes longer to get good shots.  Worse still, the shooter must focus more on the camera.

Soldiers only have to focus on the environment.  Interestingly, as a writer, if you talk “too much” with soldiers or government officials, you’ll likely be called a pawn or a stooge, but if you hang out with arsonists you might be called an intrepid researcher.

This journalist came around during some fighting.  He looked distressed and I asked if he was okay and he talked about someone who was hit.

This man also came from the direction of someone who was hit and I thought he might have seen it but I didn’t ask.

Just waiting.

Some of the body armor didn’t look so serious.  This body armor might create more work for the surgeon: after the journalist gets wheeled in, she might look at the X-Ray, pull the mask over her face, and realize she was going to have to dig out the bullet and pieces of the body armor.

Some of the helmets were made for a different job.

Tourist maybe?  I didn’t know but there was fighting just here.  Journalists are not screened from Thailand and require no special visas or permissions, and tourists definitely were coming and going from the fighting area.  Sounds like the U.S. government is today censoring the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico more than the Thais were doing here.  (The Thai government was censoring some websites, illegal radio stations and so forth, but I saw zero battlefield censorship.)

There were rumors of death threats from some protestors to journalists, but most protestors were not threatening.  There was serious fighting over the weeks with about 90 people killed and around 1,900 wounded.

Thai TV 3 was targeted and the building burned.

“At least 27 buildings and locations were on fire as of 9 p.m. local time, including the Thai TV 3 building, the Metropolitan Electricity Authority, Siam Theatre, several banks and part of the Stock Exchange of Thailand, officials said.”

Noppatjak Attanon (blue shirt) spent some time in America and played football in high school.  Noppatjak was among many courageous Thai journalists who got close enough to get burned.  Ultimately it’s probably far more dangerous for Thai journalists than for foreign correspondents, though foreign correspondents were taking casualties. Noppatjak is famous in Thailand and he works at “The Nation” which was also specifically threatened by militants.  I went to their offices to be interviewed and soldiers were guarding it against attack.  I spent some time with Noppatjak on the street.  He is instantly recognized.  Journalism can at times be more dangerous than soldiering.

Nothing is more powerful than still photography, though in the journalism world, photographers are often deemed the lowest rung.  “Shooters” are often seen as fungible and hirable like taxis.  Yet the truly top-notched shooters, that top percent, are not fungible, and can be a force unto themselves.  Still photography is—in my opinion as a writer—by far the most powerful and versatile method to convey powerful messages quickly and broadly.  Nothing else comes close.  Not video, not writing, not portraiture or radio or telephone interviews.  Still photography is the Big Gun of war reporting.

And yet the snobs are often the writers, who might view themselves as intellectually superior, but who when teamed up with a top-grade photographer can literally, without exaggeration, affect battlefields as would the most powerful generals.  Nevertheless, photographers generally are seen as sidekicks, supporting actors, and downrange you might hear a journalist quip, “Oh yes, the Shooters are first to the bar and last out.”  (While the writers plug away at their stories and wrestle with editors.)

Battlefield television is usually not the most powerful, but can be the most dangerous.  The crews often are larger, the gear is bigger, and during shooting (and SHOOTING!) they often try to linger on a scene to get the full effect.  Videographers must focus on the gear.  Experienced military Combat Camera folks will tell you that your chances of getting killed on the battlefield multiply when you start shooting video.  It’s true.  Also, that big camera gear often can look like a weapon, like a rocket launcher, and this can be especially so during the dramas of heavy fighting which include smoke, fire, darkness, extremely loud noises, sweat in the eyes, screaming, fear and lots of adrenaline and some guy who pokes around a corner from within the “enemy” positions and he has something on his shoulder and BAM BAM BAM BAM.  Dead.  Then comes the report, “Government security forces are believed responsible for killing of a cameraman…”

Sometimes nobody is really responsible.  Sometimes the surfer gets bashed on the rocks, the rocket explodes, or the climber is swept away in an avalanche.  It just is.

Never know where correspondents have been.  Last week they might have been reviewing restaurants when action came to their neighborhood, or they might have seen a dozen conflicts and sailed the seven seas.  As the years unfold, some of the most interesting people I meet are the experienced international correspondents, while others give the feeling they are running from child support.

Unidentified journalist taking local transport into the Red Shirt camp.

Some people blamed many journalists for catching a sort of “Stockholm Syndrome” inside the Red Shirt camp, and some of them did in fact seem to drink the Kool-Aid.  “Drink the Kool-Aid” is American slang meaning they blindly believe what are told.  The term is derived from an American cult leader named Jim Jones who persuaded about 900 people to commit suicide by drinking poisoned Kool-Aid, and if you pay close attention you’ll often hear it around U.S. politics, or in military circles.  Even while grenades were being fired and dozens of buildings were ablaze in Bangkok, some journalists continued to spout that the protestors were peaceful and unarmed.  They were drinking the Kool-Aid.

The Reds were getting much favorable press, and so nearly all of them seemed to be extra polite and friendly with journalists which creates its own cycle.  Meanwhile, the police and Army were being polite, respectful and professional, yet not offering lunch and soft drinks.  (Of course.)  If the military offered gratuities, likely we would view it with cynicism, but when protestors did the same, it was a sign of friendliness.  I sensed that part of the friendliness was just normal Thai culture, but there also was extra-friendliness toward people with cameras.  Some of the journalists truly seemed to fall for it.  Hook, line and sinker.  Others seemed to go with the flow—keeping in mind that editors in Berlin, London and New York have strong say in their stories and if Iraq taught me anything about journalists and journalism it was that distant editors set the tone for most publications.  After the acceptable white lines of a narrative are painted, few people stray from the path.

Humans see what we expect to see, and there is no doubt that many people expected to see an Asian government using a sickening amount of force to quell dissent.  We expected to see that.  But that’s not what actually happened.  Not at all.

[More to follow.]

Please click here to read Even as the World Watched: Part I

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