When Thais see Sorayut Suthasanajinda's Channel 3 news team in their neighborhood, they know their country's spreading floods, which have now claimed over 500 lives, can't be far behind.
For weeks Mr. Sorayut has waded through brackish water, microphone in hand, bringing the full scale of the slow-motion disaster home to television viewers even as government leaders continue to reassure people that the worst is over. He has also turned his television news show into something of a first-responder rescue service that has helped fill the gaps in the Thai government's own patchy aid efforts, quickly raising over $12 million in donations and creating a logistics machine that flings relief packages stuffed with noodles, burgers, bottled water and toilet paper to stranded victims perched on roofs or leaning out of second-story windows.
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| Anchorman Sorayut Suthasanajinda's coverage of Thailand's flooding crisis helped raise the alarm in Bangkok about the depth of the threat, and now he is spearheading a private sector fund-raising campaign to help ramp up the relief effort. |
Now that the floods are moving to the edge of Bangkok's business district after decimating much of the country's manufacturing base, some people who thought they would be safe from floods are seeing Mr. Sorayut popping up in their backyards, too.
"Some people try to tell me to stay away because I'm a sign of bad things to come," Mr. Sorayut, 46 years old, joked during a midnight patrol of the city's flooded suburbs. "But when I started building a wall in front of my house to stop the floodwater getting in, they started building walls, too. Not that it did any good. We're all flooded now."
By Sunday, the floodwaters had swamped a major intersection and the area around Bangkok's famed Chatuchak Weekend Market, a major tourist attraction, and were threatening nearby subway stations. The stations remained open but were being monitored closely by transport officials.
At a safari park in Bangkok's suburbs, meanwhile, Thai television footage showed giraffes, rhinoceroses and other animals wading as water levels rose.
The way Mr. Sorayut's shows have galvanized a private-sector-driven relief effort underscores the worsening loss of confidence in the government's commitment to getting aid and information to people who need it the most. Political analysts say that after years of political upheavals here, including a coup, airport shutdowns and bloody street protests, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's national government and her rivals in Bangkok's city administration sometimes appear more interested in scoring political points over each other than in putting forward a coordinated response to the disaster.
Government officials have said they were caught by surprise by the sheer volume of this year's monsoon rains, but moved quickly to distribute aid and are now preparing a multibillion-dollar relief plan, including pledges to build better infrastructure to cope with worsening flooding.
Still, "in the face of a crisis where no one seems to be trusting politicians, this opens the door for someone like Mr. Sorayut to play a role," said Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a Thailand expert at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
"The style is intrusive and very accessible—he brings to the footage right to your home—and in many ways it gives an alternative view of the situation."
Mr. Sorayut sticks out like a sore thumb in Thailand's carefully polished media landscape. Brash and dismissive of the usual deference shown here to the country's political class, Mr. Sorayut has won over a loyal audience with his no-frills approach. When he switched from state-run broadcaster Channel 9 to privately-run Channel 3 in 2006, operator BEC World PCL's stock price soared 30% within six months, thanks in large part to higher ratings for its news programming.
The anchorman began focusing more squarely on disaster relief in 2010, when he helped launch a "News Family" foundation to help raise funds for earthquake victims in Haiti before turning his attention to an earlier series of floods that swept parts of Thailand last year.
This year, though, Mr. Sorayut has really come into his element. First he managed to get the two leading contenders in Thailand's national elections last July to appear on the same show—something they had refused to do earlier. Then, when the extent of the latest floods began emerge, he kick-started a fresh fund-raising drive.
Accompanied by his side-kick, comedian Charoenporn On-Lamai, better known as Koh-Tee, Mr. Sorayut ventures out virtually every night to deliver aid and generate fresh stories for his morning and evening news programs. "Watch out, Sorayut is coming," Mr. Charoenporn yelled out into a dark, flooded street in Pathum Thani near Bangkok Thursday, playing on Mr. Sorayut's reputation for bringing disaster in his wake.
One resident, Sombat Pimpandee, said the government hasn't managed to send aid to his swamped neighborhood in Pathum Thani yet, and Mr. Sorayut's deliveries of rice, water and McDonald's burgers were badly needed. "We've got problems with snakes here, pythons and cobras, and it's becoming dangerous to go out, even in a boat," said Mr. Sombat, who was holed up with his wife and 6-month-old baby.
Thailand's top news anchor has his share of critics.
Some say he is using the floods to burnish Channel 3's own brand, adding that the network's logo is conspicuously displayed on its aid hand-outs and that his show rarely features the relief work conducted by government agencies or the armed forces.
Supporters of Thailand's two main political parties sometimes accuse him of secretly backing the other side.
Mr. Sorayut explained to a visiting reporter that he is still a journalist and tries to tell people's stories rather than rescue them.
"The government has a duty to help, and it will and does," Mr. Sorayut said. "We're just doing what we can in the meantime because we are able to move quickly and bypass all the bureaucracy. We have to, and we do it as openly as possible so people can see how we use their donations."
Still, the longer Thailand's flood crisis persists, the greater the likelihood of Mr. Sorayut eventually shaking off his reputation as a harbinger of watery gloom.
At a swamped village in Pathum Thani, local resident Amorn Lamonthien said the power supply came back on for the first time in weeks just before Mr. Sorayut and his team arrived.
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