January 9, 2008
According to Scoop, the new owners of the Phnom Penh Post plan to open offices in Siem Reap and take the paper daily.
Immediate plans for the paper are to turn it into a daily newspaper in about March. In April the newspaper will open an office in Cambodia’s second largest city, Siem Reap. Australian journalist Peter Olszewski will be bureau chief in Siem Reap and will assist with the launch of the daily edition in Phnom Penh.
Interesting. Because word on the street is that MC&D is on the verge of launching an English-language daily newspaper, too, perhaps as early as next week.
Thailand, a country with a lot more people than Cambodia, manages to support two daily newspapers, The Post and The Nation, but only just. It seems incredibly unlikely — impossible, even — that Cambodia will be able to support three.
Because of its NGO status, The Daily could ostensibly hang on for quite some time. But as advertising revenue gets thin, and, much more importantly, staff start defecting to the rivals, the quality of the Daily is likely to dive so precariously as to make it irrelevant, despite whatever financial life support from foreign friends of the publisher.
As for the other two, MC&D is a French-operated quasi-NGO publishing in a language it doesn’t speak very well. The Australians behind the Post are, well, Australians — it’s not like they speak English very well either. Which makes it a close call. But if you’re taking bets, the smart money is on the people with experience, and translating stuff from the Khmer papers doesn’t count.
According to Scoop, the new owners of the Phnom Penh Post plan to open offices in Siem Reap and take the paper daily.
Immediate plans for the paper are to turn it into a daily newspaper in about March. In April the newspaper will open an office in Cambodia’s second largest city, Siem Reap. Australian journalist Peter Olszewski will be bureau chief in Siem Reap and will assist with the launch of the daily edition in Phnom Penh.
Interesting. Because word on the street is that MC&D is on the verge of launching an English-language daily newspaper, too, perhaps as early as next week.
Thailand, a country with a lot more people than Cambodia, manages to support two daily newspapers, The Post and The Nation, but only just. It seems incredibly unlikely — impossible, even — that Cambodia will be able to support three.
Because of its NGO status, The Daily could ostensibly hang on for quite some time. But as advertising revenue gets thin, and, much more importantly, staff start defecting to the rivals, the quality of the Daily is likely to dive so precariously as to make it irrelevant, despite whatever financial life support from foreign friends of the publisher.
As for the other two, MC&D is a French-operated quasi-NGO publishing in a language it doesn’t speak very well. The Australians behind the Post are, well, Australians — it’s not like they speak English very well either. Which makes it a close call. But if you’re taking bets, the smart money is on the people with experience, and translating stuff from the Khmer papers doesn’t count.
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