Some Of My Best Friends Are Red, Says Pdrc Sympathiser

[Flashermac]

Chronicling the Thai political upheaval for his online followers, American freelance writer and photographer Michael Yon has managed to match some Thai politicians for unpopularity.

 

He’s got plenty of admirers, but also ferocious critics, and both sides believe the same thing - that he’s sympathetic toward the anti-government People’s Democratic Reform Committee.

 

To those who condemn him as a journalist who's forgotten his obligation to remain neutral, Yon stresses that he's not a journalist at all. He used a mainstream media outlet for the first time - Thai Rath TV - to defend himself, leaving his usual contacts on the social networks to buzz along by themselves for a while.

 

Yon says he's just a writer, not a journalist, and is on neither side's payroll. His only income is donations from followers. "A big difference between a journalist and a writer is that journalists pretend they are neutral, but even as they attempt to be neutral, they never achieve neutrality," he says. Trying to maintain balance can sometimes distort the facts, he says. "I do insert opinions - I have been around here long time," he says, while acknowledging his support of the PDRC stance.

 

Those who scoff at his claim that the PDRC conducts peaceful rallies are wrong, Yon says. "They are peaceful, and if there is danger it doesn't come from the PDRC but somebody else." He was in Bangkok in 2010 during the red-shirt protests and says most of the reds were peaceful too - only a minority was violent. But, as to the PDRC, "I'm not on their payroll and I'm not their spokesman."

 

Yon denied he has any connection with the Democrats or PDRC leader Suthep Thaugsuban. "If I'm a writer who is 'bought', who would I go to? Thaksin, right? As he's the richest man. Not a dime comes from Abhisit or Suthep. My writing is financed entirely by readers' donations."

 

Yon posts the details of these donations on Twitter and Facebook and gets taken to task for it. He shrugs off the suspicions. "Donations are the democratic way to do it. The donations are quite small, and if somebody gives me Bt1,000, that's not enough to buy me," he says.

 

The digital attacks notwithstanding, it doesn't look like anyone's going to pull the plug on Yon or otherwise try to silence him. He says he'll continue writing what he believes and include his personal opinions drawn from long experience with Thai politics. He's not worried about his safety - in fact he spends more time among the red shirts than anyone in the PDRC, since he lives in scarlet Chiang Mai. He says he's surrounded by reds there and they've treated him well, often with kindness. "Red shirts are not Dracula. There are red shirts in my own family. They are very good Thai people!"

 

 

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/life/Some-of-my-best-friends-are-red-says-PDRC-sympathi-30225646.html