BBC correspondent Alastar Leithead yesterday defended the news channel's reporting of the recent Bangkok unrest, saying many people who criticised BBC of being pro-red shirt had not watched nor read the coverage but were instead holding true "propaganda and self-perpetuating false information" spread mostly online and passed on as fact.
The good side of the whole anti-BBC-CNN fervour, according to Leithead, is that people will eventually recognise that "you can't believe anything you read on e-mail or Twitter".
Leithead warned that people who are unhappy about the BBC should not shoot the messenger.
"I reported what was happening here without a hidden agenda. I know all about Thaksin Shinwatra's past, and if tens of thousands [people] are breaking the law they should be asked why they're breaking the law," he explained.
The correspondent said he had tried "not to be used by one side or the other" and said he and the BBC would continue to report in a "accurate and balanced way [about] what is going on in Thailand".
Leithead was speaking at a symposium on the trends and dynamics on media freedom organised by Chulalongkorn University's Institute of Security and International Studies and funded by the European Union.
The journalist later said that a senior BBC staff member would be in Thailand soon to meet editors of different publications, including those at The Nation.
Suranand Vejjajiva, a Bangkok Post columnist and former Thai Rak Thai party executive who was also a speaker at the forum, said he had heard allegations that Thaksin has bought CNN.
"If Thaksin has bought CNN, then he should probably be prime minister right now," Suranand said.