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In a statement posted on its website, www.innnews.co.th, INN said it would stick to the standard of good ethics and would not be a tool for anybody.

INN issued the statement after the media questioned the reported offer to Thaksin which turned out to be a hoax.

While it accepted the scrutiny and would reconsider its reporting process, the INN explained how it got the news about the offers to Thaksin.

The INN earlier reported that several countries like the Bahamas and Bermuda had offered asylum and positions to Thaksin while living in exile.

But the governments of both countries denied the report.

Thai media published articles questioning INN's news sources after they failed to verify the INN report. They also questioned the timing of its release which coincided with Thaksin's movements and statements in the past few months.

During his address on November 1, Thaksin told his supporters that many countries had offered him shelter and positions.

According to INN, the questionable reports were found accidentally by an INN reporter while searching for another topic on the Internet.

INN said the first piece, a story headlined as "Bermuda Prime Minister invites Thaksin into exile", published on August 22, was found accidentally when INN's reporter searched for news about a Bermudan football player of the Manchester City Football Club.

The reporter double checked the information from an encyclopaedia on the Internet about the country's information and its prime minister's name. They matched, so the reporter decided to translate the story into the agency's database.

Since Thaksin's movements have been a source of interest to Thai people, INN decided to publish the stories to its audience.

"Due to curiosity about Thaksin's extradition process being an issue at that time, INN's foreign news reporter searched information from prominent media like CNN, BBC, AP, AFP and visited the websites in the Bahamas and Bermuda where stories were found before. The website of ZNS Bahamas, which was not being upgraded at that time, had a piece of news published on October 16 saying Bahamas' prime minister was seeking ways to help Thaksin. It was a 15 day old story but the reporter saw it interesting and decided to translate it," INN said to clarify how it got the story headlined as "Bahamas asks UK not to send Thaksin back to Thailand" which it published on October 31.

The website of ZNS Bahamas has been posted as "being upgraded" for more than a week.

Pirongrong Ramasoota Rananand, head of Chulalongkorn University's Department of Journalism, said when the media stressed the timeliness of news reporting, they might have compromised the accuracy of the news or reliability of news sources.

"Now is an era of information overload. Media professionals as gatekeepers or mediators must be more careful than in the past," she said. "The rule is that check, check, check and check. The media must verify the information until they are sure it is correct."

Pradit Ruangdit, secretary-general of Thai Journalists Association, yesterday said the issue was interesting as it scrutinised media professionals. However, the association would respect the rights of all media involved and would wait and see INN's proof of its news sources.