As the flooding crisis worsens, one major Thai newspaper reminds us that cleanliness is next to circulation figures.
Being the biggest selling newspaper in any country comes with great responsibility. There is a commitment to providing readers with the truth, alongside choosing stories with the most benefit to the greatest number of people.
And in times of crisis, readers look to such mega-selling newspapers for advice and support.
Which is perhaps why Thai Rath, Thailand's biggest-selling newspaper, splashed a banner headline across its front page last Tuesday morning:
WOMEN IN BANGKOK ARE WARNED: BEWARE OF THE THREAT OF ITCHY VAGINAS.
What the ... Itchy vaginas? Is that all? Isn't there anything else the women of Bangkok should be careful of?
What about the impending 15 billion cubic meters of water ominously crashing down upon them _ not to mention the men, too, and our beloved katoey?
Shouldn't women be concentrating on the deluge, or should they stick to, as you have just printed, examining their nether regions?
Put this in perspective, dear reader. Last Tuesday was a terrible day. The waters were closing in on areas such as Mor Chit and Ratchadaphisek and once again we Bangkok residents had the wet sword of Damocles hanging over us by a horsehair.
The city had stopped, with no schools and certainly no business. You were either underwater, under-educated or under threat of insolvency.
And in the middle of all this fear, nervousness and rage, Thai Rath breathlessly singled out women and their vaginas.
Before going any further I must jump in here and explain that Thai Rath isn't just memorable for its amazing circulation figures.
It is also a newspaper not unlike The Sunday Sport in England, whose front page two weeks ago declared ''COLONEL GADHAFI WAS A WOMAN''.
(That wasn't the end of it. The following week its top story was about a Libyan shepherd who claims to have had a night of ''unbridled passion'' with the deceased dictator. Before he died, of course.)
For American readers, think of the Weekly World News and multiply its outrageous quotient by two _ difficult, when that publication regularly sports front page headlines such as ''ELVIS SPOTTED ON THE MOON''.
Here in Thailand we have Thai Rath, one of 10 or so daily papers, the circulation of which allegedly edges towards 800,000 copies a day.
Even if you don't read Thai you can easily spot it. It's the one with the front page pictures of grotesque one-eyed still-born babies, or a buffalo born with five legs, or, more commonly, a jackfruit in the shape of a naked woman.
And they love dead bodies. If you're in a car crash and it doesn't make page one of Thai Rath, well, it was a car crash not worth having in the first place.
They are particularly fond of accidents that behead the driver, though it must be said they have, of late, taken to pixillating the gory details for fear children may be psychologically affected.
Too late. At least three generations of Thais have grown up with such graphic shots on page one as they eat their morning kuayteo noodles.
There's nothing quite like breakfast while poring over pictures of love triangle victims and drunk drivers who mistook the accelerator for the cigarette lighter. If you're gonna die before your time, do it in Thai Rath.
Last Tuesday was just another day in a big city threatening to be swallowed up by filthy chemical-infested water.
It was not a slow news day, either. Some big things happened.
Ratchadaphisek sprouted water from its drainage systems. Mor Chit bus station was underwater, as evidenced by my Thai friend who boarded a bus there at noon and managed to finally get out of Bangkok at 4pm.
Meanwhile, the government announced a ''high-level committee'' to be chaired by a ''veteran economist'' to map out a ''clever plan'' to get the country back on its feet.
Sprouting water ... crippling traffic jams ... an ingenious master plan ... and what did Thai Rath choose to highlight?
Maybe the newspaper was just harking back to the song that gripped the nation two months ago called Itchy Ear. You may remember my explaining that to you; the song title was a metaphor for another part of the body that required a scratch.
Or maybe it was just a case of a bunch of male journos sitting round the subs desk yearning for a bit of titillation in the middle of this deluge. I don't blame them. They are suffering from flood burn-out, as we all are.
I guess there are only so many ways one can report, day in, day out, water penetrating yet another district of Bangkok.
To Thai Rath's credit, even the headless car crash victims and sexy jack fruits have been swept off the front page as they report the floods. It was time for some excitement, and last Tuesday we got it.
Thai Rath had its justification.
''There's a lot of dangerous bacteria in the polluted waters,'' Thai Rath screamed in its first few paragraphs.
''Women are urged to wear plastic underwear when venturing into the water. If that is not possible, women should properly bathe with soap after entering the water.'' I can see the sub-editors drooling over that.
Maybe I am being too harsh on Thai Rath. Maybe they were right. Women make up half the population, and as I said in the second paragraph of this column, newspapers should report on topics that affect the most people.
Plus they were being constructive in their advice, albeit in a shady Pat pong-buy-one-porn-VCR-get-one-free manner, weren't they?
And besides were all the other things that happened last Tuesday that I mentioned really more important? Sprouting water on Ratchadaphisek old news for anyone in Bang Bua Thong or Nava Nakorn Industrial Estate. Crippling traffic jams from Mor Chit don't we have those every day?
And as for ''high-ranking committees'' being set up can anybody tell me exactly what a ''high-level committee'' is? Are they manned by hi-so figures as opposed to lowly government officials with bad haircuts?
Do they sit in high chairs? Is the water on the table Evian as opposed to Samut Prakan Bottled Water Enterprise?
And did you see the ''clever'' three-pronged approach this committee has proposed? First, address short-term problems. Second, clean up the city. Third, take preventative measures to ensure it doesn't happen again. That's high level thinking?
So in the end maybe Thai Rath wasn't wrong in its selection of the most important news of the day, despite being alone in running it on the front page.
But at the risk of being titillating myself, why stop at vaginas? What about male appendages _ surely they are at risk from bacteria, too?
If Thai Rath doesn't want to be accused of getting off on its own headlines, why aren't they warning men about venturing into the water as well? Shouldn't we be wearing plastic pants and using soap, too?
No other Thai newspaper picked up this story and ran with it. Competitors were too busy reporting on the clever thoughts of that high-level committee, and certainly all of them ran the news of the water creeping up on Yingluck Shinawatra's own home a topic we can only hope Thai Rath avoided last Tuesday.
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