I drew on an earlier piece that quoted a rear admiral interviewed by the Post’s military reporter—and also a public figure—Wassana Nanuam. My article contained quotes he had given her in that article, which had been published earlier, in October. He had told the newspaper that having a submarine base was a matter of territorial integrity.
When my article was published in February, the rear admiral was incensed. He called Wassana the next day. Apparently, this was the first time he’d read these quotations. When he asked Wassana why she had quoted him, Wassana simply denied that she had. Their interview had been on the record, but her refusal to acknowledge the quotes left me vulnerable. The rear admiral threatened to sue me for defamation.
Journalists like me are only useful until we disrupt the cozy relationship between government and media. We’re used by senior editors to drum up expat readership in a country where paper hasn’t yet become obsolete—far from it. When we’ve exhausted our role, we’re discarded and replaced by carbon copies of ourselves before we became scared and jaded.
