By Ou Mom
Sitting in a large bright room with six other people around the round table, a 38 year-old journalist was listening but shaking his head disagreeing with what his American lecturer had just said: “If you get the money from your sources to put in your pocket, you will not being an independent journalist.”
Chray Chamnan who works for Raksmey Kampuchea local newspaper and is attending a journalism course named Media Education Development in Asia Regions (MEDIAR) has asked his fellow trainees whether Cambodian journalists work without getting the bribe from the sources.
“The journalism ethics that I’ve just learnt are very good and not different from what I have learnt in the past ten years but the journalists can not practice it in reality,” Chray Chamnan said.
Chamnan said that he became a full time staff for a local entertainment magazine after six months training course funded by the Asia Foundation in 1999.
“The salary was not the first thing for me. When I first started my work, sometimes I could earn only 20USD per month,” he said “But I still continued my work because I was in love so much in writing since I was in secondary school.”
When my articles have been published, I was happy that they have informed and educated people, Chamnan added.
Based on his over ten years experience in reporting, Chamman feels that local journalists can earn less so most of the time, other involved institutions of the event or information would pay for their reporting which was called ‘Per diems’, ‘Grateful pay’, ‘Petroleum pay’ or whatever.
The journalism situation in Myanmar is a bit different. Shwe Sin Khaing, the reporter from Myanmar Times said that throughout her four years experience in journalism, most Myanmar journalists understand about their roles but she is not sure about the performance of general journalists with the bribe.
“We’ve only fewer than 100 institutions are pro-government but there are until 400 media institutions in Myanmar,” Shwe Sin said.
“Because my place is an independent newspaper, I’ve just known we’ve followed the roles of journalists and never taken the bribe,” she continued.
Not different from Myanmar Times reporter, Kay Kimsong, the editor-in-chief of the Phnom Penh Post in Khmer language said that the journalism roles and ethics have to be restricted for an independent newspaper.
“Actually, we’ve the clear rule for any reporter who has taken the bribe and totally changed the story context from bad to good and so on but we just do these confidentially ,” he said.
“Firstly we warn them directly. Secondly, we send an officially warning letter. And thirdly if they still don’t change their behavior, they will be dismissed from their jobs, Kimsong added.
According to Kimsong’s estimation, the roles and ethics of Cambodian journalists has increased to 70% because of much increase of training courses for them.
“To develop our journalism situation, I think we have done the right way to found the short journalism courses to improve and let them know their roles and ethics. If they’ve understood anything about their roles and ethics, we cannot blame or punish them,” he said.
Adding to Kimsong’s perspective, Stuart Alan Beckor, the special reports editor at The Phnom Penh Post, talked to seven trainees of MEDIAR journalism course from Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia about how to get more respect and be independent that are the only way to have more proper benefit.
“Besides inform the public about the facts, you can try to have good relationship with the rich and influence people so your companies will benefit from you and pay you more." "Simple word is called ‘Catching a Big Fish’ so either your company or your public will be interested in your ability,” Stuart suggested.
Anyway the special reports editor also mentioned not to change the context of the information though journalists need to promote their ‘big fish’. “We need the find a proper way to write the story interesting and benefiting to the public,” Stuart said.
With Stuart’s suggestion, Cambodian journalist Chray Chamnan said that he is not sure whether the ‘Big Fish’ formula can be applied as the Cambodian high ranking officers and the rich business people are not so friendly and does not much respect the journalists.
“We need to take time to promote our professional practices so our good reputation and proper benefit will come later,” Chamnan nod approval and said.
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