Near the west bank of the Mekong River, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Cambodia is decorated with black and white combat photos, snapped in the early 1970s, during the “Second Indochina War.”
But as overhead fans slowly circulated muggy air on a recent evening, a visiting American journalism professor related his shock at encountering in Cambodia a second kind of war: a newspaper war.
“What you have here, we haven’t seen in the U.S. since the 1970s,” marveled Matthew D. LaPlante, assistant professor of journalism at Utah State University.
Indeed, in Phnom Penh, a city of 2 million people – with an expat population of about 50,000 – three competing English language dailies do battle every weekday morning: The Cambodia Daily, The Phnom Penh Post, and the newcomer, the Khmer Times.
While these papers fight over English-speaking readers, Cambodian language media is largely deferential to Prime Minister Hun Sen, Cambodia’s longrunning prime minister who increasingly is returning to his authoritarian roots.
This feisty field contrasts to the collapse of the English language press in Moscow, my home for eight years before moving here in March, 2014. Shortly before I left Moscow, population 10 million, three English language publications closed: Passport, a monthly magazine; Element, a fortnightly; and The Moscow News, which came out twice a week.
The month I left Moscow, Russia annexed Crimea and started to attack Eastern Ukraine. In that year, 2014, one third of American, British and German residents left Russia. The St. Petersburg Times closed.
Then, last month, the big blow came to its mother publication, The Moscow Times. A standby for foreigners since 1992, The Moscow Times shrank radically: from daily to weekly.
This tale of two cities highlights several elements. The Kremlin is dragging Russia into a xenophobic era. Russia’s economy is contracting and is unattractive to foreign investors.
Cambodia is tolerant, open country visited by 4 million foreign tourists a year. Cambodia’s booming ‘frontier’ economy has expanded by 7 percent a year for over a decade.
For the last 16 months, I have run the upstart entrant in Cambodia’s press war – the Khmer Times, which is published by T. Mohan, a Cambodian palm oil plantation investor originally from Malaysia. The Daily and The Post, have been publishing since the early 1990s.
The Daily is in frank opposition. The Post less so, and the Khmer Times straddles the fence.
In one year, we moved the Khmer Times from weekly to daily.
We assigned full-time correspondents to Sihanoukville (Coast) and Siem Reap (Angkor Wat). We brought in an award-winning Polish magazine designer for a sharper, eye-pleasing layout. We imported a crackerjack French photographer and a matching French photo editor.
We launched five weekly inserts – Khmer language, French language, Youth Today, Kid’s Weekly and the WEEKLY, a city entertainment guide. Dropping smudgy newsprint, we opted to print on high quality, white stock paper. The Khmer Times became the first English newspaper in Cambodia to bring in comics: Garfield, Peanuts, Calvin and Dilbert. On the front page, I put an image of Garfield prowling Angkor Wat, with the headline: “The Cat Comes to the Kingdom.”
The website and Facebook page went through dramatic upgrades. They now draw hundreds of thousands of visitors. In November, the Khmer Times circulation went nationwide, selling through Smart cell phone stores to the major provincial capitals in the Kingdom.
Realizing there is a steady churn in the expat population in Cambodia, I marketed relentlessly, delivering to all embassies, serviced apartments and high-end coffee shops.
The investments and innovations paid off.
Davy Chan, our commercial director, who previously worked at the Daily and Post, estimates that our paper and ink circulation is now double the Daily and 20 percent more than the Post.
Last May, on the event of the Khmer Times first anniversary, I emailed the then-president of the Overseas Press Club of Cambodia (no relation to the Foreign Correspondents Club restaurant). I proposed that, at a neutral location, the Press Club moderate a 3-way debate among the top editors of the three newspapers. He said they declined.
“Think about it from their end, not only personally, but institutionally,” the president, a 30-something former Post staffer, wrote back. “They’ve been at it for decades; you’re the new kid…If I were part of a longstanding institution, I would see no benefit in sharing a platform with a new competitor. The Khmer Times would benefit much more just by being on a stage as an equal.”
Harrumph!
Fast forward six months.
In December, The Khmer Times completes a massive newsroom raid on The Phnom Penh Post. The Khmer Times is hiring 10 of their most senior Cambodian news personnel – three editors, six reporters and one photographer. News professionals that would not go near the Khmer Times one year ago, seem to be voting with their feet on the outcome of the press war.
The week before I left Cambodia, on Nov. 26, the publisher of The Post was fired and the Australian owners renewed their efforts to sell their papers. As in the old days, newspaper wars provoke casualties.
Now as I move to Ukraine and begin work as CEO of the Kyiv Post in Ukraine – the lone English-language paper in Ukraine – I am confident that my work in Cambodia over the last 16 months is in safe hands, with a strong editorial team.