THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Leave it to viewers to |decide Sorrayuth’s fate

Leave it to viewers to |decide Sorrayuth’s fate

Re: “TV3 ‘will lose viewers’” and “Social media storm thunders as Sorrayuth continues hosting show”, Front page, March 2.

Your two reporters did a great job covering the aftermath of the guilty verdict against popular anchorman Sorrayuth Suthassanachinda. The embezzlement from state-run Channel 9 a decade ago is definitely despicable. Your report on a boycott of his programme was also impressively balanced, considering that Sorrayuth was once a Nation employee and now works for a competitor. Neither of the reports joined the chorus of public opinion urging sanctions against his current employer for failing to sack Sorrayuth after the guilty verdict. 

Is the current outcry fair to Channel 3? Should we really expect everyone to share the desire that he disappear from screens while free on bail? If the court has granted him temporary freedom, should we banish him from daily work that provides a measure of entertainment and education, not to mention revenue for his employer? Channel 3 must have pondered these questions and decided it was worth keeping him on. The popularity of his show is, after all, due more to the homework done by his team prior to each broadcast, than to his presenting skills. 
Only time will tell if impartial viewers feel the same way as the chorus of do-gooders who are keen to educate the public on moral standards.
The real test will come when viewers have to watch Sorrayuth present items on corruption. But that day might never come.
Songdej Praditsmanont
 
nationthailand