Phnom Penh, Cambodia - San, a 47-year-old former soldier, has worked full-time at a newspaper in Cambodia for the past 14 years. He carries company-issued business cards, a government-issued press pass, and a walkie-talkie on his hip, but he has never been paid a salary.

Instead, like hundreds of other members of Cambodia's press corps, he cobbles together a living by combing the countryside for news, then accepting bribes not to publish stories.

In some cases, San uncovers wrongdoing and approaches the law-breaker for hush money. Other times he receives regular "envelopes" of cash from local officials to ensure he doesn't even start hunting for news in their vicinity. Either way, he doesn't publish many stories.

This way of doing journalism is ingrained in Cambodia, but is rarely discussed openly, even though a spate of recent violent attacks has been directed at this unruly corps of journeyman reporters, who tend to congregate in remote areas where illegal logging and land grabs are rampant.

An overwhelming majority of local Cambodian journalists get their income from multiple sources, because we don't get pay from the publisher. But we make money from our news.

- "K", 40-year-old journalist

"It's difficult, because most journalists in the provinces have gone into the media profession without any professional training, so sometimes they don't even think it is unethical to get $5, $10, or $50," said Moeun Chhean Nariddh, the director of the Cambodia Institute for Media Studies.


whole story here: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/featur ... 99165.html

Sounds like a dangerous occupation. A mine clearing expert might live longer.

phuketrichard wrote:disgusting

anyone could dig up anything on anybody
thats not reporting

It's called blackmail where I come from