Media in Cambodia is better than the neighboring countries

http://www.vuthasurf.com/2008/12/24/media-in-cambodia-is-better-than-the-neighboring-countries/

Posted by vutha on Wednesday, December 24th 2008 Digg it

DecI attended the first Congress of Press Council of Cambodia by focusing on “Matter Media” on December 22, at Pact Cambodia’s office. The representatives of Cambodian journalists from different local newspapers and associations were presenting about the matter of journalism happening in the country. Until now, the journalism sector is improving and better than the neighboring countries like Burma, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Even though, media representatives revealed the challenges and threats by the government authority. In the past few years, journalists had been killed, threatened and jailed. The murderers still have not yet to be arrested by the authorities. However, the government dropped out the file of defamation and crime, but journalists are still faced with court system used as a tool to arrest the journalists, by alleging the publication of fault information.

Other thing is that, it is because that the Freedom of Information Law is not made yet. Therefore, the journalists have difficulties to access information from the public institutions, which are the obstacle for them to report the government issues.



Even though, some journalists use their duty to extort money from smugglers, logging trucks and so on. The factors affect the professional journalists. At the mean time, some journalists have lack of professional skills. By the way, there is discrimination among journalists working for popular and unpopular newspapers.

Eventually, most of local media, both state and private, are bias to the current government and not independent in reporting the true news to the Cambodian people. And other newspaper is serving the political parties rather than the people’s interests.