The English and Khmer editions of the Phnom Penh Post newspaper in the Cambodian capital will remain closed until the end of March due to financial difficulties, the publication’s management announced. This was reported on the pages of the publication on March 1.
The closure marks the end of the iconic newspaper, which has earned a reputation as a fiercely independent newspaper founded in 1992 by Americans Michael Hayes and Kathleen O’Keefe.
“Following the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis, the company’s revenue has decreased significantly.”its management said in a statement published in the March 1 edition.
The text states that the shareholders were trying to invest more money and generate income to restore the company’s financial health and continue publishing the newspaper, which has existed for more than 30 years.
“We deeply regret that our shareholders have decided to stop publishing the newspaper, in both English and Khmer, before March 29, 2024,” the statement said.
Hayes and O’Keefe invested their $50,000 savings in creating a newspaper that would cover the last six years of the civil war and the final collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime before focusing on rebuilding the country after the war.
The publication subsequently became a launching pad for aspiring journalists who have always been highly critical of the government and the country’s ruling elite, closely associated with the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and Hun Sen, who was prime minister. of the country for the last 38 years.
Australian mining magnate Bill Clough bought the publication from Hayes in 2008. The amount of the transaction is not disclosed. The new owners purchased modern printing presses and the Phnom Penh Post grew from a biweekly to a daily publication, winning dozens of international awards for its excellence and independent reporting.
However, the crackdown on political opposition launched by Hun Sen’s government in 2016 has borne fruit. Thus, in 2016, the opposition newspaper The Cambodia Daily was forced to close due to an exorbitant tax of 6.3 million dollars. The headline of the last issue read: “The transition to a direct dictatorship.”
While the opposition politicians were detained, the Phnom Penh Post also received a notice as part of the updated tax laws, which sources said required it to pay around 3.9 million in taxes. The bill has been heavily criticized by press freedom advocates and civil society groups as part of the government’s broader efforts to crack down on any form of dissent.
Clough decided to sell the newspaper to AsiaPR’s Malaysian managing director Sivakumar S. Ganapathy, and the Phnom Penh Post faced growing criticism that it was simply toeing the government line ahead of the 2018 election.
The journalists who remained at the Phnom Penh Post fell on hard times under the new regime, but were assigned to provide economic and financial coverage of Cambodia. But the newspaper continued to lose money, and sources said it was losing at least $20,000 a month.
“You have to ask yourself”said a Cambodian analyst who preferred to remain anonymous. “About the closure [издания] It was announced less than a week after the Senate elections, which ended a five-year electoral cycle and secured PCP control. This newspaper is expensive and may no longer be necessary.”
Cambodia’s main opposition party, the Candles, was disqualified from last year’s general election, allowing the CPP to take control of the national assembly and Prime Minister Hun Sen to hand power to his eldest son, Hun Manet. .
As expected, on Sunday he gained complete control of the Senate.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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