Remembering Veera | 25.03.05
As a follow-up to the previous post about Veera Prateepchaikul, here’s a look at some of his performances at the helm of the Bangkok Post.
Condoms
In December 2003, Veera penned an op-ed titled “Keep condoms off campus”, in which he said the idea of selling condoms in universities is “a bit too much too swallow”. (Insert your dirty joke here.)
What followed was quite a spectacle. Postbag letter writers, not normally known for their good sense, rightly bombarded him with unanimous condemnations, which continued for days and days. (They were even more unanimous than the usual gripes about the Thaksin government.)
No condom zealot myself, I personally think the Ministry of Public Health has no business offering what the universities can provide for themselves if the demand is there. However, Veera didn’t base his argument on this individualist principle, but rather on the aesthetic and hypocritical ground that students shouldn’t get their condoms on campus (but can do so elsewhere). Surely, this is what Philip Cunningham of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism calls “Veera’s subtly subversive news analysis”?
Perhaps one man’s reaction is another man’s subversion, so let’s focus on the “analysis” part. In an already very lame article, this bit strikes me as the lamest:
To my knowledge, even in the United States not every university is equipped with condom vending machines.
And how, pray, did he acquire this “knowledge”? How many universities did he call up to inquire whether condom vending machines were installed? None, of course. He made it up, and apparently felt uncomfortable enough with his creation to have to couch the statement with “to my knowledge”.
Rest assured, Khun Veera, no one’s going to call your out on this one. With all the universities in the States, it’s perfectly safe to assume that some, perhaps even many, don’t have condom vending machines. They probably have other channels for selling or distributing condoms, of course, but Veera wisely avoided considering that possibility. How would he respond, for example, if I told him that at my condom-machine-less university, RAs put up envelopes full of condoms in the dormitory hallways for “emergency use” (which, much to the RAs’ chagrin, simply translates into every use)? Surely that counts as an argument for condoms on campus, doesn’t it?
Trink
About three weeks after writing that inane piece, Veera “retired” Bernard Trink, whose column about Thailand’s nightlife was by far the Bangkok Post’s most popular. Whether you’re a fan or foe (Thrink has plenty of either), it was a stupid editorial decision to drop a columnist with 30000 followers. And how. The Bangkok Post abruptly terminated Trink’s weekly column without ever giving him a chance to sign off to his readers, leaving them furiously to wonder what had happenned.
These are two further demonstrations of Veera’s unfitness as editor. Outsiders can only surmise the Post Publishing board’s real reason for transferring him, but if the board were up to the job, it must’ve taken those into consideration. My only disappointment is that it was just him, instead of the Post’s entire editorial staff. Believe it or not, there are some who deserve to be removed — fired, in fact — even more than Veera did.
16:57 ▪ media
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