A cameraman for a German TV station feeds live video to a satellite from his laptop on the pavement in front of a red shirt barricade in Bangkok, according to dpa. A Canadian blogger who is usually happy to get 1,000 or 2,000 hits on YouTube holds his video camera in front of his face as red-shirted protestors battle troops and suddenly he's getting 300,000 hits. An American TV producer stays on top of the fast-breaking story by letting his thumbs do the walking on his mobile-phone-linked Twitter page. The latest communications technologies and social networking systems are spewing out a flood of information on the Thai political crisis, while giving more traditional media a run for their money. "Without Twitter, no one would know what's going on," enthused independent television producer Eric Seldin, 50, who has been covering the Thai political crisis from the beginning. "It's a stream of consciousness. Everything is in real time. I'm totally addicted." Internet-based networks have come into their own during several recent upheavals, particularly in Iran last year and Haiti and Chile earlier this year. "Newswise, it's Twitter and Facebook," Seldin said. "Nobody uses MySpace anymore." One measure of Twitter's success during the Thai crisis has been the frequent appearance of the "Fail Whale," an automated message that pops up on computer and mobile phone screens when the Twitter system's capacity has been overwhelmed. The ability to receive real-time updates on one's mobile phone has not eliminated the need for sound news judgement, Seldin said. "There is a lot of false information out there," he said. "I have to separate the wheat from the chaff. Like any journalist, you multiple-verify the information. After a while you get to know who's reliable." The red shirt crisis has cranked up the Thai rumour mill and made it possible for news providers and consumers to bypass traditional media, creating a few instant internet stars. "A lot of people are capitalizing on this to boost their sites," said Tony Joh, 37, who has been blogging from Bangkok since December at thai-faq.com. He expressed concern that other bloggers were trying to emulate his success in single-handedly covering the bloody battle between Thai troops and red shirt demonstrators on April 10. His three video blogs from that night are some of the most compelling footage from the carnage. They received more than 300,000 hits worldwide, he said. "I worry that other bloggers are trying to do the same thing by putting themselves in danger," Joh said. "They shouldn't risk themselves just to get some hits." One reason for the need for increased vigilance on the part of amateur as well as professional journalists has been the changing attitude of the red shirts themselves. In the early phases of the crisis the anti-government protestors actively solicited the sympathy of journalists, welcoming them into their demonstrations and freely providing interviews and refreshments. That attitude had turned to outright hostility by the May 19 military crackdown, when journalists perceived as unsympathetic to the red shirts, including those working for the English-language Bangkok Post, The Nation and some foreign media, were verbally abused and roughed up by the demonstrators. An Italian journalist was shot dead that day and several other journalists were wounded by gunfire. Warnings of journalists possibly being targeted by the military, citing anonymous "reliable sources," were distributed by email and text messages in the days leading to the military crackdown. The BBC and CNN have been hit by a barrage of criticism in cyberspace over alleged bias and over-simplification during the Thai crisis. Both networks have attempted to co-opt their on-line competition by trumpeting the best websites and encouraging viewers to send in their own photos and comments. The US-based cable network's website CNNGo last month gave recognition to what it considered the seven top Twitterers in the Thai capital, with Bangkok Pundit leading the pack for political news and views. The Bangkok Pundit Twitter page and website offer up-to-the-minute coverage of Thai politics and a wide range of opinions, in contrast to hundreds of other sites with all-too-obvious axes to grind.
