Keeping Watch

By Jeff Hodson
The cambodia daily

The Cambodia Daily newsroom in 1999

For an adrenaline rush, there’s nothing quite like getting shot at. Or seeing red tracer bullets whiz above your head while B-40 rocket grenades explode nearby.

Those of us who worked as journalists in Phnom Penh in 1997 won’t forget the tanks, the looting and the chaos as Cambodia’s power politics played out on the streets of the capital and villages.

The images I can’t shake are of digging up the graves of those who were executed in the aftermath of the power struggle.

Despite the violence and intimidation, The Cambodia Daily continued to put out a paper—with exceptional bravery from its Cambodian staff—even long after much of the international community had left for safer places.

There were many other big stories in 1997 and 1998, including Pol Pot’s death and the demise of the Khmer Rouge. And there were many smaller stories, too, about culture and people and the environment.

The Daily was there to cover them all—with compelling, balanced and fact-based reportage that set new standards for the Khmer language media while keeping the local and international communities informed. As one French diplomat put it at the time: “Your newspaper is essential.”

What I’m most proud of, though, is the way in which the Daily covered the 1998 national elections, the first self-managed polls in decades.

The staff exposed the ruling party’s subtle but widespread efforts to manipulate the ballots, from “buying” votes from villagers, to stacking the electoral machinery in its favor, to conducting mock polls in the countryside.

Reporters also talked to ordinary people to give the nation a sense of how it felt about itself as an emerging democracy. The quality of coverage was unsurpassed, as the paper lived up to its role as watchdog, explainer and educator.

That role is unchanged today, as the Daily continues to chronicle the rebuilding of a nation after years of civil strife. The story is far from over.