• Cambodia
  • North Korea
  • Freelance Journalism
  • Freedom of speech
  • Human Rights
  • Internet Journalism
  • Religious Extremism

Nate Thayer - Journalist

A Compilation of Current Reporting and Archived Published Work of Journalist Nate Thayer

  • Support Publication of Sympathy for the Devil
  • Shop
  • Blog
  • About Nate Thayer
    • Selected Reviews and Commentary
  • Awards and Honors
You are here: Home / Cambodia / No More Creampuff Journalism: Readers React in Letters to the Editor

No More Creampuff Journalism: Readers React in Letters to the Editor

February 1, 2014 by wpfixit

No More Creampuff Journalism

Sometime public commentary on the published writings of a journalist can get nasty, sometimes snarky, and sometimes downright witty.

Here, readers react with a series of letters to the editor to an interview I did with Khmer Rouge Prime Minister Khieu Samphan published in the Phnom Penh Post. It wasn’t pretty, but it was witty (mostly).

No More Creampuff Journalism

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

No More Creampuff Journalism

Friday, 29 January 1993

I was spending some vacation time in Phnom Penh when I picked up your paper and read the “interview” with Khieu Samphan. What’s going on? This guy is a mass murderer and is single-handedly blocking a U.S. $2 billion international peace effort.

Yet your “reporter” Nate Thayer treats Samphan like he was some kind of elder statesman, asking him what he thinks of the current political situation.

Why didn’t he ask him what it feels like to kill 1,000,000 Cambodians? I’ve read PR handouts that hit harder than this piece of marshmallow.

Do your readers a favor-next time you interview the Khmer Rouge, send a real professional reporter-not a cream puff like this Thayer guy.

Bill Shuller, United States

I responded to that missive with the following:

Thayer responds:

“I’ve been called a puppet lackey, an intelligence operative, a right wing jerk, a communist sympathizer, and a hopeless drunk, but I have never been called a creampuff and I resent it.”

– The Post welcomes comments from our readers.

 This was followed by another letter the following issue on the “creampuff” topic:

Disgruntled Readers React to a Published Article in The Phnom Penh Post

Disgruntled Readers React to a Published Article in The Phnom Penh Post

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

Sour Creampuffs

Friday, 12 February 1993

As a long-term resident of Cambodia who has been subjected to Mr. Thayer’s Errol Flynnish style of journalism for most of that time, I must take exception to the use of the word “creampuff.” It is extremely difficult to make a good creampuff in the tropics.

The term one should apply to this journalist is lightweight twerp.

Bill Lohan, Cambodia

Which was followed by more correspondence to the editor, this letter suspected of being the work of still unidentified mischievous journalistic colleagues:

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

Gentle Journalism

Friday, 09 April 1993

I feeling so sorry for your reporter Kate Thayer called Gream Puff and Light Weight Werp in letters. So unfair! I read her interview with Mr. Khieu Samphan so interesting. Mr. Khieu Samphan of course is very bad man hates Vietnam people but reporter did no thing wrong. She just write down everything what she told very obedient and polite and not ask rude questions of important man her superior. Why call Gream Puff and Eroll Fling? My friends and I in the Ho Chi Minh Ladies Sewing Circle say, carry on Kate! Keep writing in your own gentle and lady like way!

Ho Chi Minh Ladies Sewing Circle

Still More letters to the editor followed:

Phnom Penh Post

Letter to the Editor

Khmer Rouge Chic

Friday, 26 February 1993

The Post editor was kind enough to take the heat off of poor Nate Thayer in answer to Phil Schuler’s accusation of ‘cream puff journalism’ (Feb. 3 Post 2/3), But I fail to see why inclusion of the questions would have mitigated the impression. Didn’t Thayer write the piece as published?

In addition to the list of names Thayer says he has been called, there was ‘Khmer Rouge-chic’ which I applied to some of his writing (see Indochina Issues 93, August 1991), and he attracts those names because of a persistence in treating the Khmer-Rouge as just ordinary guys with good intentions.

He asks for it again in his photo (Post, same issue, p.6) of a gentle Khmer Rouge soldier tenderly offering a smoke to a Vietnamese soldier, presumably a prisoner, when there is good information that the usual fate of captured Vietnamese was death.

Filed Under: Cambodia, Criticism of, Humor, Khmer Rouge, Nate Thayer, Nate Thayer blog, Phnom Penh Post Tagged With: Humor, Khmer Rouge, Nate Thayer, Phnom Penh Post

Pre-order Sympathy for the Devil, the new book by Nate Thayer

Pre-order sympathy for the devil book nate thayer

Support Publication of Sympathy for the Devil

Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalist's Memoir from Inside Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge I have been researching and writing Sympathy for the Devil: A Journalist's Memoir from Inside Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge for 25 years. For 25 years, I  conducted original reporting to compile what is now an 800 page, unedited manuscript. I have accumulated millions of words of notes, hundreds of hours of audio and video recordings and hundreds of photographs, and … [More...]

Comments

  1. Professor VJ Duke says

    February 1, 2014 at 1:32 pm

    Creampuff is not so bad is it?

  2. Paul says

    February 2, 2014 at 8:57 am

    Nate, these are all fascinating stories, but of late I can’t help but think your output could do with some contemporary issues beyond reminiscing on the past.

    I wish you luck in your book and fundraising campaign, but don’t forget to keep up contemporary investigations and writings. I am not sure what the demand is to read too much of a journalist’s personal reminiscences over reading a journalist doing journalism.

Please donate to support this blog

I am a freelance journalist who makes my living from writing. If you enjoy this blog, a donation, no matter how small or large, would be much appreciated and will go directly to supporting my ability to write and publish independently. I am grateful for the support of my readers. Donate Button with Credit Cards

FOLLOW NATE THAYER ON FACEBOOK

Tag Cloud

AP North Korea Cambodia Chris Barker Conspiracy theories Corruption democratic peoples republic of korea Dogs donald trump Freelance Journalism free speech Human Rights Humor Hun Sen Internet Journalism Journalism Journalism ethics Khmer Rouge Kim Jong-un Kim Jong Il KKK Ku Klux Klan Lamont Loyal White Knights Loyal White Knights KKK Media Ethics middle east Nate Thayer Nate Thayer blog North Korea North Korea Covert Operations North Korea Media North Korean propaganda North Korea sanctions Kim Jong-un organized crime Pol Pot Religious Extremism sex Social Media Sympathy for the Devil Terrorism U.S. domestic Terrorism U.S. Foreign Policy U.S. Politics United States War Correspondent

Categories

Featured Posts: Sympathy for the Devil by Nate Thayer

How–And Why-The New York Times Didn’t Interview Pol Pot

Nate Thayer: periodismo, crowdfunding y autopromo

Lunching With Mass Murderers: Khmer Rouge leaders explain why they slaughtered their own people, and why it was, really, for the best: Excerpts from “Sympathy for the Devil” By Nate Thayer

Pol Pot with daughter Nate Thayer Sympathy for the Devil

Pol Pot’s little girl grows up: Wedding of dictator’s only child is divorce from childhood trauma

U.S. Govt Sues Dog for $100,000 to solve health care crisis: Mutt responds to Power with Smooches

“Who is that singer? Johnny Jackson? Like he says, ‘We are the World!’ We are with the West! Let’s join together!” said a Khmer Rouge cadre

The Final Collapse of the Khmer Rouge: how the US dropped the ball when offered Pol Pot for trial

The Road to Pol Pot: Snippets from a Journalists Memories

More Posts about Sympathy for the Devil

Recent Blog Posts

  • Never trust the internet or people are nuanced: A case study
  • Texas White Supremacist Jailed for Plot to Blow Up Federal Buildings
  • Nazi protesting Ohio CV-19 quarantine identified
  • Iran Revolutionary Guard Claims it ‘Invented’ Known Fake CV-19 Detector
  • U.S. Law Enforcement: Leader of U.S. Nazi Terror Group is a Russian Spy

Most Popular Posts

abc stolen pic july 29 1997 1108 am edt

How Ted Koppel and ABC TV Tried to Steal my Life Work

How Ted Koppel and ABC TV Tried to Steal my Life Work By Nate Thayer December 8, 2013 I am banned by legal agreement to write the following: ABC Television/ Disney Corporation, after seven years in court, where they attempted to bankrupt me and ruin my reputation for objecting to them stealing fifteen years of […]

Herb Trader Arthur Torsone

My Friend, Arthur: the World’s Biggest Dope Trafficker

Herb Trader: A Tale of Treachery and Espionage in the Global Marijuana Trade A Book Review, Sort of….. Excerpts from Sympathy for the Devil:A Journalist’s Memoir from Inside Pol Pot’s Cambodia. (To support the publication of Sympathy for the Devil, and to read other excerpts, see the right hand column of this website) (Copyright Nate Thayer. […]

A Day in the Life of a Freelance Journalist—2013

A Day in the Life of a Freelance Journalist—2013 Here is an exchange between the Global Editor of the Atlantic Magazine and myself this afternoon attempting to solicit my professional services for an article they sought to publish after reading my story “25 Years of Slam Dunk Diplomacy: Rodman trip comes after 25 years of […]

Menu

  • Support Publication of Sympathy for the Devil
  • Shop
  • Blog
  • About Nate Thayer
    • Selected Reviews and Commentary
  • Awards and Honors

Menu

  • Cambodia
  • North Korea
  • Freelance Journalism
  • Freedom of speech
  • Human Rights
  • Internet Journalism
  • Religious Extremism

Cambodia

The Night Pol Pot Died: a journalist’s first hand account

North Korea

Jim Jones and North Korea: Comrades in Political Mass Murder

Human Rights

Assassination of Cambodian #Kemley Marks Hun Sen’s Mafia Rule

Internet Journalism

Washington Post gets punked by Malaysian earthquake “naked blogger”

Copyright © 2022 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in