Paper’s Closure a Sad Day for Journalists

Posted by AsiaViews | Sep 12, 2017 | 0 |

By Alan Parkhouse*

Khmer Times

Sept 5, 2017

A lot has been written and said about the closure of the Cambodia Daily, some of it factual, some of it emotional and some of it lacking sense. Here’s my take.

As a second-generation journalist, I hate to see any newspapers close for the simple reason that people like me lose their jobs and readers lose the opportunity to hear a variety of views.

Over a long career, I’ve found myself unemployed twice when newspapers have been shut down and I would never wish that fate on another journalist – especially with so many newspapers around the world shedding staff and cutting costs.

The people I feel for most in this case are the Daily’s local journalists, some with families to support.

While it’s still sad to see people lose their jobs and livelihoods, the mostly young foreign journalists at the Daily can move on and look for other jobs in Cambodia or in the region, and if that doesn’t work out, they can look for work in their home countries. But the Daily’s local journalists will struggle to find work in such a small market. Those local journalists are the real victims in this sorry tale.

As a former editor of The Phnom Penh Post and the current editor of Khmer Times, I’m in the unusual and unique position of twice having the Cambodia Daily as a rival.

And I’ve been targeted by the Daily – the Daily attacked me in print twice when I was at the other paper and both times I replied and quickly silenced them. I have never attacked their newspaper, only replied to the unwarranted and unfair criticisms they printed about me.

The Daily has also attacked Khmer Times on a number of occasions before I became editor.

While the Daily was quick to attack other publications or their editors over the years, their attacks were launched from an uneven playing field.

As Minister for Information Khieu Kanharith pointed out on August 24: “There were many foreign newspapers that filed complaints about the Cambodia Daily.” He went on to say that some of those filing complaints were Japanese and Chinese publications.

To the best of my knowledge, neither The Phnom Penh Post nor Khmer Times ever filed a complaint against the Daily during my time at both newspapers.

“So, there were many complaints from foreign newspapers to demand equal treatment for fair competition because all those newspapers paid taxes, except the Cambodia Daily,” the minister added.

Myself and the many other former employees of The Phnom Penh Post working at Khmer Times also had to pay back taxes from the time we worked at the Post.

Apart from the Daily not paying its taxes, there is another issue that should also be mentioned.

The Daily, which for most of its 25 years operated as a non-profit NGO newsletter training local journalists, also never paid to use stories from news agencies like Reuters or Agence France Presse (AFP) and in the past it never paid for the right to reprint stories from major newspapers in the United States.

This free access to wire services and lifting rights from other papers was done under the guise of being a charity or NGO newsletter set up to train local journalists. I use the word newsletter because the generally accepted definition of a newspaper is a publication that comes in two basic sizes – broadsheet or tabloid.

The other two English-language newspapers in Cambodia pay substantial sums of money to use those services, which are vital when it comes to bringing their readers international news and photographs.

So, it was never a level playing field for the Daily’s competitors.

But despite the advantages the Daily operated under, it is still sad to see it closed and to see yet more journalists out of work.

Over the years the Daily’s journalists broke some big stories and many of the people who learned their profession there went on to bigger and better things in journalism.

I hope the current crop of journalists who had been working at the Daily do the same.

*The writer is chief editor of the Khmer Times

(http://www.khmertimeskh.com/5081508/papers-closure-sad-day-journalism/)

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Indonesia urgently needs to revisit the possibility of repatriating the neediest of its young citizens stranded abroad, whose families had earlier joined ISIS. Most of these children are in camps in northern Syria but there are also small numbers in the Philippines, Afghanistan and Iraq. “Extricating Indonesian Children from ISIS Influence Abroad”, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) argues that the government could begin by bringing back small groups of unaccompanied children under ten years of age, who pose minimal security risk and are most vulnerable to deteriorating conditions in the camps.“The problem is that health and security conditions are worsening by the day in the Syrian camps, and the children are growing older,” says Dyah Kartika, IPAC analyst. “They need access to schools, a nurturing environment, and medical attention. If the government waits too long, the children will be further exposed to ISIS ideology.” The new report examines a 2019 list of Indonesians in camps and prisons run by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Indonesian government has been trying to verify their citizenship, but with pseudonyms, misspellings and bad transliterations, it is a daunting task. At the time the data was collected, between March and June 2019, there were 555 Indonesians in SDF camps and prisons, including 367 children. Among the children, approximately 277 were under the age of ten and 34 were unaccompanied. In June 2021, there are fewer than ten children who are both unaccompanied and under the age of ten that could be prioritized for return. Bringing back children of ISIS families is no easy task. The report analyses the main challenges faced by the Indonesian government. These include definitional issues, bureaucratic competition, the difficulty of verifying nationality, evaluating the toll of exposure to conflict, assessing security risk, and finding relatives or others willing to provide care once the children are returned. In addition, COVID has meant stringent restrictions on travel, placing further obstacles in the way of repatriation. There are several models for rehabilitation of children exposed to violent extremism in Indonesia that could be modified to accommodate the needs of children repatriated from abroad. The report examines these models and argues that the government does not need to have every detail of rehabilitation programs in place before it starts extricating children from ISIS influence. It can start by bringing back the most vulnerable children and then modify programs as needed.

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Paper’s Closure a Sad Day for Journalists