Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Comfrel: Media coverage is excessively biased towards the CPP

Monday, March 12, 2007

By Kong Sothanarith
Cambodge Soir

Translated from French Tola Ek

Comfrel issued an election observation report, in which it stated that the coverage provided by news media on campaigning political parties is unbalanced by reporting only about the CPP, and generally in positive terms.

The local media is putting too much emphasis on the ruling party, the CPP, during this commune election, the Comfrel report stated. “The TVK channel, national radio stations FM 96 and AM 918, and the private CTN channel are dedicating a biased coverage in favor of the CPP activities,” the report indicated while stressing that the ruling party is collecting by itself more coverage than all other parties combined, the coverage are also positive towards the CPP. Other parties only obtained 30% of broadcast time over the election, most of these coverage are either “neutral or critical,” Comfrel’s report shows.

“For one month, the CTN channel only talked about the CPP, over a duration of 32 minutes and 25 seconds, and the comments they made were 89% positive [in favor of the CPP]. Chum Kosal, the CTN anchorman, regularly stressed that the entire CPP leadership systematically visited the provinces,” Comfrel noted. As for International radio stations, the party which came out first was the Norodom Ranariddh Party, mainly because of the legal problems its leader is facing, followed by the CPP, the SRP and Funcinpec. “The four parties received fair comments, some of them positive while others are either neutral or critical,” the report indicated.

On the written media side, Comfrel followed the coverage provided by the two major newspapers in the country: Rasmei Kampuchea and Koh Santepheap. There the newspapers provided coverage for 5 parties: CPP, Funcinpec, SRP, NRP and Thomico’s Sangkum Jatiniyum Front Party. There again, the CPP is taking the lion share by receiving 34 articles positive to its credit.

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