Challenges for Independent Media Report 2020

Cambodia has outperformed its neighbors with some degree of freedom of press and expression (Williams & Rich, 2014). The Kingdom was ranked 128th in 2016 in the World Press Freedom Index by the Reporters Without Borders, a remarkable performance for the post-conflict country like Cambodia. This honeymoon has fallen short and deteriorated since after the crackdown on civil society, political opposition, and the independent media in the run up to the National 2018. Cambodia is ranked 144th out of 180 countries in 2020 World Press Freedom Index (Reporters Without Borders, 2020), a worse performance compared to its rank in 2016. These regulations have signaled the loss of emancipatory democratic principle (Beban et al., 2020) where independent media is seen as one of effective tools to promote good governance and the principle of democracy.

The data analysis of this research study reflects literature review and the state of independent media in the Kingdom. The news covering without fearing of repercussion, for instance, remains the primary challenge for many journalists. The total 90.65% of respondents say they are concern reporting corruption scandals. And 81.31% of them say they have experienced self-censorship because of the current political environment.  And despite a large percentage of respondents say they have experienced legal, physical, and psychological threats, only 43.93% of them say they are provided necessary training and support to address these issues.

The other emergence issues are the growing concern of fake news and its implication on public trust on media and journalism. The survey records 62.62% of respondents say they find it difficult to identify between fake and reliable news. And 93.46% of the total respondents think that fake news is undermining public trust on media and journalism in Cambodia. Another similar finding is the lack of scientific knowledge in identifying scientific trust, not opinion, among journalists when reporting the novel Covid19 which accounts for 57.01% of the total respondents.

When it comes to respondents’ perception on press freedom in Cambodia, only 9.52% of them think that the press freedom in 2020 is better than the one in 2019. And about 22.64% of the total respondents think that the press freedom in 2021 will be better off compare to the press freedom in 2020. Surprisingly, only 16.82% of the total respondents think that the press freedom in Cambodia is on the right path. (Executive Summary, Challenges for Independent Media 2020)

Click here to view or download the English full report in pdf file.
Click here to view or download the Khmer full report in pdf file.

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