Serving as Editor-in-Chief since he founded The Phnom Penh Post 17 years and three weeks ago (First edition: July 10, 1992), Michael has long battled to bring Cambodia’s troubled story to public view.

In addition, he and his newspaper became the first stop for foreign correspondents such as myself arriving in Phnom Penh in pursuit of stories. He has always been generous with his time, contacts and encyclopedic knowledge of Cambodia, but Michael did more than inform the public and help fellow journalists.

His most lasting legacy may well be the cadre of courageous journalists trained at the Post and who broke so many great stories.

Fittingly, in his swan song as editor, Michael names Cambodian journalists murdered between 1994 and 1997. Most were gunned down in broad daylight on the streets of Phnom Penh: Tou Chom Mongkol, Nuon Chan, Sao Chan Dara and Thun Bun Ly.

Michael writes:

The simple fact is that I’ve never had much difficulty finding Cambodians who wanted to be reporters. And if turnover was high, it was more because people with marketable skills in the foreign-employer arena found it difficult to live on the Post’s pitifully low salaries, or the demands of working till midnight on deadline placed too heavy a price on time with families.

So if this issue seems unduly focused on me, my preference is to use the space to salute the courageous and dedicated Cambodian reporters who have worked, often at great risk to themselves and their families, for me over the last 17 years. These are the real unsung heroes of The Phnom Penh Post.

As a foreigner I have always had the option to call my embassy for help or just head to the airport and catch the next flight out. My Khmer reporters do not have these luxuries, but in spite of this many, if not most, were and still are determined to do something to help their country, to print the truth about issues and problems that were and still are related to helping Cambodia recover from 30 years of civil war and chaos.

Disclosure: In addition to owing a huge debt of gratitude to Michael for so much generosity to me over the years, I am now a minor shareholder in The Phnom Penh Post. Fortunately for The Phnom Penh Post, Michael remains very much on board as a senior editor to help with the expansion of the newspaper into a Khmer language edition.

Seth (pictured here with the PPP publisher Ross Dunkley to the left) and his team at the Post won awards of excellence for news photography and human right reporting.

There was only one publication in the same category (Local newspapers and small magazines published in English) that won more prizes than the Phnom Penh Post: The South China Morning Post.

Needless to say, The South China Morning Post is a newspaper with a much longer history and considerably greater resources.

The PPP team won these awards even as they cranked the newspaper up from publishing twice monthly to five days per week in a country where freedom of expression is still a daily battle.

Congratulations!!! (Disclosure: I am a minor – but very proud – investor in the PPP.)

The awards were for:

Excellence in News Photography: Boeung Kak Lake Land Evictions by Vandy Rattana, Chhay Channyda and Rick Valenzuela. The judges described the photographs as “striking, heartbreaking images that are also visually complex”.

Excellence in Human Rights Reporting: “Escape From Hell On The High Sea: Nine Trafficked Men Return Home” by Christopher Shay, May Titthara. The judges described the work as “Enterprising work from a small publication.”

Mekong Times’ editor-in-chief, Neth Pheaktra, told the DPA news agency that a lack of funds had forced the closure of the hard copy edition but that the paper, which also published in Khmer, was still considering options for putting out an online edition.

The Phnom Penh Post reported details of the business:

The Mekong Times, which employed more than 40 staff and ran on a budget of about US$30,000 a month, opened on February 8 and had published 135 editions. The 12-page newspaper, with a four-page Khmer-language insert, covered local, regional and international news, and had in the past received praise from Prime Minister Hun Sen for its integrity and impartial reporting.

Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said that the discontinuation of The Mekong Times was unfortunate because it meant a loss of balance in the information presented by foreign media.

I am not a neutral observer in this newspaper war (Disclosure: I am an investor in the Phnom Penh Post), but am greatly saddened by the closure both as a reader and as an investor.

As a reader, newspapers are always best in a highly competitive environment. Competition keeps reporters lively.

As an investor, a shrinking of the market is always bad news. The more publications there are, the more aware advertisers become of the value of newspapers. My hope is that the battling newspapers expand the market rather than eat each other.

Hong Kong’s English-language publishing market offers an example of what I hope Cambodia avoids. The South China Morning Post has developed a de facto monopoly on English-language news on Hong Kong. This is bad for the reporters (they can become lazy) it is bad for ad sales (hard to convince advertisers to look at a shrinking market).

Despite closure of the Mekong Times, the DPA story goes on to say that Cambodia’s media is not suffering overall from shrinkage:

Cambodia’s Khmer and English-language media market has exploded recently, giving advertisers a much broader range of choices.

Magazines on subjects from specialty computer and mobile phone glossies to interior design advice decorate news stands as the country’s burgeoning middle class spreads its consumer wings.

Short-lived English-language weekly magazine The Advisor closed for ‘a hiatus’ earlier this month, saying advertisers were increasingly embracing the cheaper option of internet websites, and its parent Expat Advisory Services continues to operate online.

In this era of newspaper downsizing, it is great to see The Phnom Penh Post expanding from two times per month into a daily operation.

Disclosure: I joined in the round of investment that has helped the newspaper go daily.

Cambodia is country very much in need of a vibrant free press and I look forward to reading what the Phnom Penh Post team can accomplish.

I have not yet seen a physical copy of the daily paper, but here’s some reviews from bloggers who have:

Restless Trotter:

Surprisingly, its price is now down to KHR 2,500 per copy from previously KHR 4,000, despite being 100% color. Readers can also access the PDF version of the paper from its website, simply by signing a free membership. I hope the paper will keep this free service available always. That’ll be a really awesome way for me to catch up with news at home!

Kudos to the Post team for the innovation!

Monivong Boulevard:

First, congratulations to Michael Hayes and the new owners–we finally have a REAL English language newspaper here in Cambodia, something that looks, feels, and reads like an honest to goodness, daily newspaper. That is a good thing.

On the positive side, I have no problems with the editorial. Good, solid content. 24 pages, color photography. Plenty of national news, with a nice mix of regional/international/wire service stuff. Also good to see travel, lifestyle, and sports sections. Business stuff is also good.

Along with the TV listings, cross word puzzle, sodoku (always a fave of mine), I particularly like the flight listings. That’s good not only for the tourists, but also very handy for us expats who do a lot of traveling in the region.

The negatives: Production quality needs to improve (but I think they know that already). Off color, sometimes blurry photos and ads. That will take time to fix, especially with the press machines they’ve brought in, but those are relatively minor issues. There were also some weird layout decisions, especially that large, awkwardly positioned headline on the bottom of page 1. But that’s another minor point.

Secondly, what about Siem Reap news? They made all this fuss about opening a Siem Reap bureau, but I saw a grand total of ONE story from Siem Reap, the home of Angkor Wat. There’s a lot of stuff happening in Siem Reap right now on many levels—-business/tourism development issues, social/political issues, and environmental issues. It’s all ripe fruit, ready to be picked. Where is it? More Siem Reap news please.

Finally, why is the bi-weekly Theary Seng exercise in narcissism in the business section? Come to think of it, why should it even be in the paper at all? Her column has been going downhill for months, to the point where her psychodramatic ramblings are verging on camp. I say this sadly, since there is much that T.S. does in her work with the Center for Social Development that I admire.

I read the insert section, which contained a message from the new owners of the Post. This part from the owner’s message was interesting:

Face it, few other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have open elections and a free press, a healthy-looking business climate, and a firmly founded and budding civil society.

If doubtful, check out the current social and political volatility in Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines, investigate the elections—or absence thereof—in Brunei, Laos, and Myanmar, and glance at the circumscribed press in that trio of nations and in Singapore and Vietnam.

Interesting that they diss Myanmar in that last paragraph, especially since the new owners are involved in running the Myanmar Times and have been careful not to piss off the government there.

I wonder if anyone in the Burmese embassy in Phnom Penh read that piece, and sent it over to the junta boys in Myanmar for their perusal. Hmm.

So what about Bernie’s Bulletin—uh, I mean–the Cambodia Daily?

What is publisher Bernie Krisher going to do next? What will be his answer? The Post has raised the bar. Compared to the Post, the Cambodia Daily with its archiac A4 paper format, boring layout, and black and white photography, looks like a high school newspaper, club newsletter, or church bulletin.

The Daily also has ZERO web presence–thanks to grumpy old Bernie’s Luddite-like inclinations. and the PP Post is already building a solid news site that will be updated daily. That is also not good for the Bulletin—sorry, I mean—the Daily.

Bernie better have a good answer. Otherwise, once the Post starts ironing out the production glitches, and continues to improve its content, look for advertisers to start deserting Bernie’s Bulletin in droves.

And the other English daily in Cambodia? That be the Mekong Times.

That thing is on fumes, and is barely worth mentioning. Look for it to fold or be sold any day now.

Looking forward to reading issue #2 of the new Post, which comes out Monday. They will publish Monday thru Friday.

The newspaper has scooped up a number of awards in 2009, including those for reporting and photography at the Society of Publishers in Asia’s annual competition.

As the post reported about itself:

Vandy Rattana, Chhay Channyda and Rick Valenzuela took the Excellence in News Photography award for their coverage of Boeung Kak lake, where a private company is reclaiming the natural reservoir to build a commercial and residential project, affecting more than 4,000 families. The judges said the essay and singles were “striking, heartbreaking images that are also visually complex”.

May Titthara and Christopher Shay won the award for Excellence in Human Rights Reporting for their article “Escape from Hell on the High Sea: Nine trafficked Men Return Home”, on 17 men repatriated from Malaysia after having escaped forced labour on a Thai fishing boat. The judges called the report “enterprising work from a small publication”.

The Post’s publisher, Ross Dunkley, and its managing editor, Seth Meixner, received the awards at the Hong Kong ceremony. The newspaper had entered submissions from its daily-newspaper coverage, which began in August after more than a decade as a fortnightly paper, in the group for English-language local newspapers and magazines with a circulation less than 50,000.

Dunkley often has strong views and has never been known to hold them silently.

Here’s your chance to follow in the footsteps of Southeast Asia’s great foreign correspondents at Cambodia’s most prestigious English-language newspaper:

The Phnom Penh Post, a bi-monthly newspaper that is shifting into a daily, is looking for 2 or 3 aggressive sub-editors who are not afraid to tear stories apart, but who also have a lot of patience in dealing with young reporters with limited English and nascent reporting skills.

As the veteran of another Asian newspaper launch, I am sure this would be a great launching point for a career in journalism (and fun).

Interested?

Contact
Seth Meixner, Editor
The Phnom Penh Post
Email: seth.meixner at phnompenhpost dot com