In the depths of the esteemed editorial halls of NTN, we have concocted a conspiracy theory that sounds ridiculous even to us—so ridiculous, in fact, that it would be a journalist disservice to our readers to keep it to ourselves.
Do we believe it’s true? Of course not. But we have a policy here to tell you the truth, lies, and everything in between.
After all, that’s what we ascribe to at NTN. The information we print may not be accurate. But it is true that someone has told us the information we are printing, and in these crazy times we believe that spreading and perpetuating rumors is our public duty.
You see one school of journalistic thought requires reporters to actually do some reporting and at least attempt to verify the accuracy of information that is published. But we prefer a more nuanced approach of printing everything and letting the readers decide. That’s right: We report, You decide what’s true.
So here goes. When Pojaman Shinawatra returned to Thailand, she surrendered her passport so she could not leave Thailand. That means her fate totally rests with the courts. So our great conspiracy theory is that the courts may actually find Pojaman guilty of her crimes, and put her in jail! Didn’t think of that, did ya? It’s craaaaaaazy!
Now we are sure the Shinawatras had not thought about this possibility before sending Pojaman back to Thailand. We are confident that they sent her back as a political tactic because they thought they could be ensured of a fair judgment now that PPP won the election. We believe firmly that the court decisions of the past two years involving the voided election and Thai Rak Thai’s dissolution, were perfectly in line with the rule of law and in no way political. And we are sure that the Shinawatras new-found faith in the judicial system has occurred only because they are once again popular.
In making our analysis, we will choose to purposely avoid several key facts. For instance, we disregard completely that the Assets Scrutiny Committee may be biased in any way. And we also reject criticisms that the judges were actually serving the interests of the coup-makers when they dissolved Thai Rak Thai.
We also make a point of ignoring that Thai Rak Thai was still very popular when the election was voided in April 2006, or even when the coup occurred the following September.
Yes, we forego logic here to give you some red meat to chew on. We even believe that Thaksin is gullible enough to head home to Thailand to be thrown in jail. Yes, we think he thinks the military really gives a damn about the election results, and will exonerate him solely due to PPP’s popularity.
Now, you can believe this or not believe it. That is not for us to get involved in. We reported what we heard over drinks with our friend Sombot who works as a security guard at military headquarters. Yes, he’s a drunk and has little access and no real credibility. But he often says insightful things, like the conspiracy theory mentioned above.
We here at NTN talked it over and realized that journalism goes beyond simply facts and quotes. It reaches for a higher goal. We have a duty, an obligation, to tell our dear readers everything we hear, no matter how ridiculous it sounds.
We’ve told you all we know. Wait, as I was writing this we heard that the Paragon department store may hold a Valentine’s Day sale, and that Thaksin may direct Pojaman to go on a shopping spree to try and buy judges gifts to get them off the hook. OK, now we’ve told you everything.
It’s up to you to figure out if you believe it. We know we might.
