Unbelievable. BBC World just did a report on the elephants of Khao Lak, the coastal town in Thailand that was badly damaged during the tsunami. The report highlighted how the elephants had been vital for reaching more remote areas of the coast to help transport people, but as there are now no tourists going to Khao Lak, they face an uncertain future. All good so far. Then the reporter blithely says “The tourists are not coming because there are no hotels in Khao Lak anymore”…followed seconds later by a shot of an elephant walking by a huge great sign for one of Khao Lak’s luxury hotels, many of which are still fully open. Would it have killed the reporter to walk in and find out? Moreover, numerous hotels up on the cliffs of Khao Lak escaped being damaged by the tsunami (as I noted in my article about Khao Lak earlier this year) and several will be re-opening in November. A classic case of a TV report simply adding to the misery of the situation it’s ostensibly reporting on through not doing some basic fact-checking.
More on Khao Lak:
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