No Thais affected by earthquake in Italy, Embassy confirms

[webfact]

No Thais affected by earthquake in Italy, Embassy confirms

 

  

ROME, 25 August 2016 (NNT) No Thai nationals were affected in the 6.2 magnitude earthquake which struck central Italy, announced the Thai Embassy in Rome. 

The Royal Thai Embassy has released a statement confirming that there are no Thai nationals or temples affected by the 6.2 magnitude earthquake which struck central Italy at 03:36 a.m. local time on Wednesday. 

Thai nationals visiting or residing in Italy are advised to remain alert to potential aftershocks, and closely monitor news and information from media outlets. 

Any information regarding Thai nationals believed affected by this incident can be reported to the embassy by calling 393338518071.

 

-- nnt 2016-08-25

[digibum]

While I understand it on one level, it does kind of bug the s*&% out of me on another that whatever tragedy happens anywhere in the world, the Thai headline is that no Thais were injured or died.  

 

I was going through my Twitter feed this morning and despite the death toll in Italy still climbing, all the Thai press was Tweeting was that the earthquake in Myanmar could be felt in Bangkok.  

 

Granted, I grew up in California so earthquakes are second nature to me but it seems a tad myopic to only be concerned with news from the rest of the world if and only if it somehow impacted Thai people.  

 

I know, every country is somewhat myopic but it's the brazenness at which the Thai media makes Thais the headline.  

 

[DrTuner]

Well it's Thai embassy's duty to check and NNBT's duty to tell the chosen people none of the supreme beings were hurt.

[daveAustin]

I'm alright, Jack.

[phantomfiddler]

What narrow minded selfishness ! What about the poor Italians  

[Sphere]

Quote

No Thai nationals were affected in the 6.2 magnitude earthquake which struck central Italy, announced the Thai Embassy in Rome. 

 

Translation = Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton factories are undamaged.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Sphere

[KKr]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

no Thai nationals or temples

before, did not know about Thai Temples in Italy.

[digibum]

Neither of the two leading English-language newspapers featured the Italian earthquake story on their front pages.  The ATM theft was a much bigger story.  

 

 

 

[DM07]

Just waiting for TAT to state, the earthquake will affect tourist- numbers from Italy to Thailand...

[HappyDazed]

It's perfectly normal, for eg if a plane goes down somewhere in asia then western media only report how many falang were on board and from which countries, they never mention the non-falang nationalties.  It's the embassies job to only report on their own citizens...but hey dont let the facts get in the way of your thai bashing.

[digibum]

36 minutes ago, phantomfiddler said:

What narrow minded selfishness ! What about the poor Italians  

 

Another unique characteristic of Thailand, never being asked about anything going on in your country.  They really don't care.  Fires, floods, earthquakes, terrorism, it doesn't matter.  Most Thais have no clue what's happening outside of Thailand and have zero interest in finding out.  That might make them "think too much".  

 

But one Thai guy gets ripped off by a scammer and loses money via bank fraud and the media runs with it and it goes viral on Facebook.  

 

You would think that a country that is so heavily dependent on exports and tourism would give a sh*& about what's going on around the world.  I mean, wouldn't it be nice if an Italian tourist was asked told by the hotel manager, "I read about the earthquake in Italy.  I'm so sorry.  I hope everyone you know is okay."  

 

Holy moly.  What a concept.  

 

Or what if a rice exporter called his Italian contact and told him that he was sorry to hear about the earthquake.  Maybe even suggest that it would be understandable if he needed to delay their business a day or two.  

 

 

 

[digibum]

3 minutes ago, HappyDazed said:

It's perfectly normal, for eg if a plane goes down somewhere in asia then western media only report how many falang were on board and from which countries, they never mention the non-falang nationalties.  It's the embassies job to only report on their own citizens...but hey dont let the facts get in the way of your thai bashing.

 

I'll call BS on that.  

 

I have rarely if ever seen an American news story that is headlined:
 

Air Disaster in Asia.  No Americans Killed.  

 

But 100% that is the exact kind of headline you'll see in the major Thai media.  

 

I think what you're trying to say is that the NY Times might write about a plane going down in Asia and there were 345 people about, including 10 Americans, but that is far, far different from the main point of the story being about only the Americans that died on the flight.  

 

See, most western writers would communicate the same information without the need to make their country the focus of the story.  For instance, "At approx 6:05am EST a landslide hit a village in Nepal killing 12 people and injuring hundreds of others.  This is the second landslide to hit Nepal in as many months . . . . yadda, yadda, yadda, scientists say the because of heavy rains . . . "  The lack of reference to any foreigners dying or being injured says everything that needs to be said.  

 

 

[Smiley Face]

Quote

No Thais affected by earthquake in Italy, Embassy confirms

 

I think what they meant to say is that no Thais give a s*&t about the earthquake in Italy since it has no direct impact on their pocketbooks or on their selfish souls.  So, life goes on as normal in Thailand and the rest of the people be damned.  

[DM07]

Let's see, if the defenders of the faith (eg all things Thai) can spot the difference between these 2 statements:

- Earthquake in XYZ, 20 people dead, among them 3 Thais!

- Earthquake in XYZ, 20 people dead, among them no Thais!

 

...got it?

[HappyDazed]

1 hour ago, DM07 said:

Let's see, if the defenders of the faith (eg all things Thai) can spot the difference between these 2 statements:

- Earthquake in XYZ, 20 people dead, among them 3 Thais!

- Earthquake in XYZ, 20 people dead, among them no Thais!

 

...got it?

 

It's not the job of the Thai embassy to report the deaths of other nationalties!

 

....got it?

 

[HappyDazed]

2 hours ago, digibum said:

 

I'll call BS on that.  

 

I have rarely if ever seen an American news story that is headlined:
 

Air Disaster in Asia.  No Americans Killed.  

 

But 100% that is the exact kind of headline you'll see in the major Thai media.  

 

I think what you're trying to say is that the NY Times might write about a plane going down in Asia and there were 345 people about, including 10 Americans, but that is far, far different from the main point of the story being about only the Americans that died on the flight.  

 

 

You're splitting hairs over semantics...my point is that western media only list the number of falang killed which is no different from listing the number of Thais killed even if that number happens to be zero.  They are more concerned about getting the message out to ease the minds of Thais who might have family living in Italy....the embassy phone number at the end of the article is bit of a giveaway as to the scope of the article.

 

Also, this is a statement from the Thai embassy not a general news outlet....'Thai' being the operative word.  It's not their job to keep track and give statements on how many Italians or other nationalities died, that is for the 'Italians' to do...

 

And, the article was written by TV staff not Thais so all complaints on the wording of the article should go to the author....;)

 

 

 

[digibum]

35 minutes ago, HappyDazed said:

 

You're splitting hairs over semantics...my point is that western media only list the number of falang killed which is no different from listing the number of Thais killed even if that number happens to be zero.  They are more concerned about getting the message out to ease the minds of Thais who might have family living in Italy....the embassy phone number at the end of the article is bit of a giveaway as to the scope of the article.

 

Also, this is a statement from the Thai embassy not a general news outlet....'Thai' being the operative word.  It's not their job to keep track and give statements on how many Italians or other nationalities died, that is for the 'Italians' to do...

 

And, the article was written by TV staff not Thais so all complaints on the wording of the article should go to the author....;)

 

 

 

 

Sorry, no matter how much you try to split hairs, you're still wrong because the entire point of what I wrote was that it was the semantics.  

 

First off, this is not the first, nor will it be the last time this type of headline is written.  NNBT wrote this one but I've seen it in the major newspapers as well.  That's why I said in my original comment that I was reacting to the overall tendency of Thai media to write headlines like this.  

 

Look at my join date, this isn't my first rodeo.  I've read a lot of Thai news over the years.  I've seen this same headline for a different tragedy more than a few times before.  It's one thing if this was one rushed story an editor was trying to get to press and he worded the headline poorly.  But it's not.  Every tragedy around the world involves at least one Thai news outlet proudly declaring that no Thais were impacted.  And that's the whole story.  

 

And do you think that major news organizations report tragedies around the world which only list the number of farang killed.  It's a silly argument since it's so easy to disprove.  Are you really telling me that you think western media writes stories like, "Today, a massive earthquake rocked Kabul killing only one Brit"?  

 

And don't try to push this off onto the OP author.  Here's the same headline on the source website.  

 

http://thainews.prd.go.th/website_en/news/news_detail/WNFOR5908240010002

 

 

[digibum]

1 hour ago, HappyDazed said:

 

It's not the job of the Thai embassy to report the deaths of other nationalties!

 

....got it?

 

 

So, let me sort of explain how journalism works.  A journalist usually receives many facts from many sources for a single news story.  They typically don't create a story for each fact.  

 

So, while the embassy releasing the number of Thais killed or injured in the Italian earthquake is a fact, one has to question as to whether that fact alone rises to the level of importance of being a story.  

 

That doesn't mean the fact itself isn't important.  But is the fact by itself worthy of being a story?  

 

So to put it in terms you might understand better, it's not the job of the media to create news stories based on a single fact issued by the government . . . . got it?  

 

Here's the search results for "earthquake" on the NNT website.  

 

 

They wrote three stories about the Myanmar earthquake and the one and only story written about the arguably much more devastating Italian earthquake is to declare that Thais were not impacted.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Franz81]

9 hours ago, KKr said:

before, did not know about Thai Temples in Italy.

 

http://www.eurasiaworldpeace.com/index.php?lang=en