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Sex, scandal and the Cambodian
press
By James Borton
PHNOM
PENH - There are 600 or so journalists on the streets of
the Cambodian capital, chasing down rumors, writing
half-truths about politicians, royals, sexy mistresses,
and government corruption. At first glance, one might
think that Rupert Murdoch has a broadsheet publishing
operation along Monivong Boulevard, but these are
freedoms enjoyed by the unrestricted license of
Cambodia's Khmer press.
"Unfortunately most news
stories are based more on dreams and rumors here in
Cambodia than on anything resembling fact," laments Um
Sarin, president of the Cambodian Association for the
Protection of Journalists (CAPJ).
Um pins the
blame on a lack of professional training, but all of
this is changing with the emergence of a new four-year
journalism class offered by Royal Phnom Penh University.
About five kilometers from the center of Phnom Penh, the
university has more than 300 teaching staff for its
4,700 scholarship and non-government students.
"I am so happy to be studying journalism here
since I want to help my country as a professionally
trained reporter, telling the real truth and making a
difference," says Chea Chou, 19. The Department of Media
and Communications at the Royal University of Phnom Penh
was established last September and offers a bachelor of
arts in media management - the University's and
Cambodia's first bachelor-degree course in media
studies. Unlike the professional short training courses
at the Royal University of Phnom Penh and at the
Cambodia Communication Institute (CCI), the goal of the
Department of Media and Communications is to offer
four-year degree courses, training students across a
broader range of media-related academic disciplines.
"The course really aims to prepare students to
be standard bearers of the media profession,
particularly to help create and maintain the
highest-quality independent journalism and media
management that will serve the needs of the Cambodian
people," says the program's director, Im Sothearith.
Only 22 students were selected from an
application pool of more than 1,200. All of the students
in the class are conversant in English, since many
competed advanced English-language courses at Phnom
Penh's School of Foreign Languages.
"I am here
in this class since I want to strengthen democracy in
Cambodia," says Meas Bunly, 21, another journalism
student.
It was after the general election of
July 1998 that Cambodia tentatively and hopefully
started down the road toward political stability and
democracy. Bernie Krisher, former Tokyo bureau chief for
Newsweek and founder of the English-language Cambodia
Daily, recognized the important role that Cambodian
media can play in ensuring the country's democratization
process.
With two English-language newspapers,
the Cambodia Daily and the Phnom Penh Post - which last
month celebrated its 10th anniversary - and more than
100 Khmer-language newspapers and magazines, as well as
eight television networks, Cambodia has many more media
organizations than its media-hypersensitive neighbors
Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar combined. So the potential for
media development remains quite promising.
It
helps that a handful of stellar Khmer journalists, such
as Associated Press reporter Ker Munthit, have had the
opportunity to travel abroad and complete their studies
at the journalism program at New York's Columbia
University.
"I was able to gain some
considerable experience at the Phnom Penh Post, which
celebrated this summer a 10th anniversary, and Michael
Hayes, the founder, is to congratulated," says Ker. In
addition to the Post serving as a valuable launching pad
for a score of Khmer journalists, the Cambodia Daily in
its newsletter format has more than a dozen Khmer
journalists on staff.
Kim Peou Sotan, a stringer
for Radio Free Asia (RFA), was on an assignment recently
in the northeastern province of Ratanakiri interviewing
the farmers, fishermen and highlanders in that remote
part of the country. Like many other Khmer reporters,
she is interested in bringing to the attention of her
people the many issues associated with the hydropower
development along the Mekong River.
As a wife
with two daughters, she exudes much pride in her role as
a female journalist in Cambodia. "Sometimes here it is
difficult to develop sources - people are often afraid
to speak openly to the media," says Kim. Her colleague
at RFA, Um Sarin, confirms that sometimes a reporter can
be intimidated. "No, it's not really dangerous duty
anymore, but sometimes risky," says Um.
Of five
journalists killed between 1993 and 1997, four were
apparently the victims of government thugs, says Peter
Eng in the September-October 1997 edition of the
Columbia Journalism Review.
Cambodia's cruel and
repressive Khmer Rouge regime of 1975-79 resulted in the
destruction of schools, and the decimation of teachers
and brought about the cessation of all formal education.
Under Pol Pot, the entire faculty at the Royal
University of Phnom Penh were executed and the campus
deserted for more than five years, another victim of the
grim civil war.
Norbert Klein is Cambodia's
media ombudsman, or at least the media's self-appointed
watchdog. As editor of The Mirror, a weekly
English-language journal culled from Cambodia's local
papers, he admits there are still obstacles facing
country's media, but acknowledges the development of
evolving journalistic responsibility.
The state
of journalism in Cambodia has improved in areas ranging
from production values to the inclusion of different
viewpoints. David Hawk, formerly posted in Cambodia as
the United Nations deputy commissioner for refugees,
says, "Rasmei Kampuchea, at least in 1999 when I left
Phnom Penh, was one of a few, if not the only newspaper
that was independent of political-party subsidies in
that it paid its costs from advertisements."
It
is important to note that Cambodians got their first
taste of independent journalism after the 1991 Peace
Accord, when the United Nations Transitional Authority
in Cambodia (UNTAC) assumed partial control of the
country. UNTAC was charged with preparing the country
for open elections and subsequent democratic rule, and
part of its mandate included fostering an authentic free
press.
Like the entire media industry in
Southeast Asia, the Khmer press is under attack not from
the government, but really from a lack of a solid and
developing advertising base. Most newspapers or
publications in Cambodia will not survive unless there's
an influx of foreign direct investment.
The
Ministry of Information's Khieu Kanharith says there are
more than 200 publications, including more than 10
dailies, that reflect a distinct political bias. Of
course, there have been a few isolated cases when the
government has actually suspended a local publication or
two for perceived ambush-style journalistic attacks
against King Norodom Sihanouk.
"We have some
journalists who challenge the government and write about
corruption and sometimes they are accused of defamation
when in fact they are only performing their duty as a
reporter," says Pen Samitthy, president of the Club of
Cambodian Journalists and editor-in-chief of Rasmei
Kampuchea Daily. His Khmer daily is Cambodia's
largest-circulated newspaper and commands almost 40
percent of the local advertising market in a country
where most citizens subsist on a dollar a day.
It is a common refrain among Cambodian reporters
that their meager salaries mark them for easy bribes
from government officials. "Most journalists cannot
survive on their salaries," says Rasmei Kampuchea's Pen.
In sharp contrast to their neighbors,
particularly in Myanmar, China and Vietnam, Cambodians
enjoy an enviably free press. Recently the Vietnamese
authorities have cracked down on journalists, including
more stringent policing of the Internet, while the
Myanmese authorities recently banned 15 Thai reporters
and their media organizations from entering the country.
Yet Cambodia is still a poor country, where the
people sometimes do not have enough money to buy their
own copy at US 20 cents an issue, so they often rent or
in the words of the locals, "rent" a copy at the
newsstand for less than 5 cents, perusing it quickly, or
reading either the four-color Rasmei Kampuchea Daily or
the Funcinpec newspaper, Khmer Amatak, to gain different
points of view. Even opposition candidate Sam Rainsy has
a consistent bias reflected in the Voice of Khmer Youth
newspaper. Of course, with education opportunities still
weak, recent government surveys indicate that less than
5 percent of Cambodia's 12 million people read a
newspaper every day.
"It's very difficult even
with the freedoms enjoyed by the press to find a neutral
view or independence - I am ashamed to reveal this fact,
but it simply the truth," says Chea Song, president of
the Neutral Press Freedom Team and a director of another
daily, Samleng Polrath Khmer (Voice of the Cambodian
Citizens).
The crackdown on the press was
particularly harsh in 1997, when political fighting
between the two co-prime ministers degenerated to street
fighting and, in effect, a coup by Prime Minister Hun
Sen and his Cambodian People's Party (CPP). "There were
a few times that we were threatened with closure, but
nothing came of it," says Michael Hayes, founder of the
Phnom Penh Post.
Cambodian editor Tel Piseth of
the daily Neak Torsou acknowledges the contributions
made by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Cambodian
Communication Institute and the Independent Journalists
Foundation in providing necessary short-term special
journalism classes for many reporters in Phnom
Penh.
"We are a small operation with only seven
reporters many of whom received special training through
several practical journalism training programs," says
Piseth.
While it is clear that a majority of
people working in media fields in Cambodia do not have a
degree in journalism, most Khmer reporters continue to
express their desire for greater opportunities to engage
in advance studies in the field.
Next year's
scheduled general election will offer the government a
chance to test the principles of equal media access for
all declared candidates. It will also provide a grand
stage for Khmer's journalists to demonstrate to the
country and to the West how a free and socially
responsible Cambodia press reports about politics.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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