Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Soy Sopheap is launching his own newspaper "Deum Ampil"

December 19, 2006
Cambodian reporters launch newspaper to push forward social development

A group of Cambodian journalists here on Tuesday launched the Deum Ampil Newspaper in order to share ideas for the future development of the kingdom and serve the benefits of all walks of life of Cambodia.

Soy Sopheap, editor-in-chief of the 12-page paper and reporter of Cambodian Television Network (CTN), told Xinhua that the Deum Ampil will serve the benefits of all its readers, press for the development and progress of Cambodia and provide knowledge for the Cambodian people.

"We are independent newspaper and we are not under the influence of any political parties because all articles of the newspapers are from our reporters under Deum Ampil," he said.

"We will walk the path of our former journalists who created the kingdom's first newspaper Nagara Vatta Daily 70 years ago. We join altogether today to open this new newspaper to continue our duty and reputation in the newspaper field to help our society while following the law of journalism of Cambodia," he added.

High-ranking government officials, diplomats, political party leaders, NGO leaders and over 60 Cambodian journalists attended the ceremony, which was presided by Khieu Kanharith, government spokesman and Information Minister.

"I am happy with you all to open this newspaper and this newspaper will play a key role for helping the Cambodian society and we have a new colleague," he said.

"I suggest hopefully all journalists to respect the code of ethics of Cambodia and stop trying to use ugly words because it will cause useless (effect) and destroy our newspaper's reputation, " he said.

The minister, who had been an experienced reporter before entering the government, pinned hopes that Deum Ampil becomes a helping hand rather than a trouble maker for the government.

"In the past years, our journalists played the main role as ' factor of social change' but now our journalists plays the main role as 'the watchdog' for helping society and government," he said, adding that newspaper used to be set up in Cambodia before elections to serve party interests.

Meanwhile, Nov Sovathero, spokesman of the co-ruling Funcinpec Party, said that the Deum Ampil newspaper will offer benefits for the Cambodian people because it has the professional leaders in the journalistic field and will respect the journalism code.

"Some newspapers does not respect the code for journalism and code of ethics but hopefully sooner or later this will become better for the Cambodian journalists," he added.

Parliamentary member Keo Remy said that the Deum Ampil newspaper will help the Cambodian society score progress.

In the virgin issue of Deum Ampil, readers could have stories like Former U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to Cambodia, opposition leader Sam Rainsy's comments about the kingdom's political policy, scandal of corruption, and land dispute in Siem Reap province.

Currently, Deum Ampli will get published once a week, later twice a week and finally once a day.
Deum Ampli in Cambodian language means tamarind tree. "The Corner of Tamarind Tree" is a place about 50 meters from the National Assembly, where Cambodian journalists always get together to chat with each other and exchange information and news.

During mornings from Monday to Friday, reporters can always be spotted sitting under the hundred-year-old tamarind tree, drinking coffee, speaking with laughter, waiting for news, writing stories or just enjoying their breakfast.

Media is a popular trade in Cambodia. Before June 30 this year, the kingdom, with only 14.5 million population, altogether registered 274 Cambodian language newspapers, 27 periodicals, 74 magazines, 40 foreign language newspapers, 14 journalist associations, and 11 foreign news agencies.

Source: Xinhua

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr. Soy, which newspapers in Cambodia that declared themselve at non-independent newspapers? so your newspaper is independent or not,readers will know well after reading it. Does your newspaper have any expert to analyse for specific field for social development? Do you use reporter to analyse like what you did for CTN? thanks, good luck

Anonymous said...

In cambodia there is no independent newspaper. The less biased one is Reaksmey Kampuchea. the most political ones are srolanh khmer(with repeated fake news) and KI-media(recently has improved alot).

Anonymous said...

Soy Sopheap or Soy bean? Time will tell the different!!!!!!!!!!!