Prof. Chhay Sophal shares views with WJC2022

Cambodia News
Phnom Penh, Cambodia (26 April 2022): Chhay Sophal, Universities’ Media Professor, on Tuesday shared his view and examples in Cambodia at the World Journalists Conference (WJC2022) on “Society Changed by Journalism”.
The two-day conference on 25-26 April 2022 organized by the Journalists Association of Korea (JAK), in a hybrid format in Seoul was participated by 70 journalists, journalism experts and professors from 45 countries.
The following is Prof. Chhay Sophal’s speech at the final day of the two-day WJC2022:

Good afternoon to all of you and Greeting from Cambodia!

First of all, I just share with you all two examples in Cambodia indicating that social can be changed by journalists:

1. Up to the late 1990s, one of the Cambodian minority groups living in the remote mountainous areas still took unexpectable belief for human. Their old belief is that when a mother gave birth to a baby and the mother was immediately dead, the family and villagers would bury the alive baby with the dead mother. Such horrible belief was reported by journalists, and the government then took firm action and banned the cruel belief as it is a crime against the country’s law.
2. The second one is about condom use. For Cambodians and perhaps other nationals in Asia, when talking about condoms, people are shy and sometimes angry due to their cultural norms. But when journalists repeatedly reported about it, people started being aware that when talking about condoms, safe sex and reproductive health are concerned. Such reports took time to educate the people, and now the Cambodian society really understand about condoms referring to birth spacing, HIV/AIDS, and STDs infection.

As you may know that journalists need to seek the truth and reporting to the public in their respective society for better life with fairness, balance and accountability. Anyplace where no journalists’ work, it is dull and nobody knows what the worst things happen daily. Without the presence of journalists, especially professional and independent ones, plenty of negative issues can occur,  like: corruption, human rights violation, human trafficking (especially women and child trafficking), child sex and labour exploitation, drug trafficking, bad public services, and other social issues, even religion and cultural extremism.

With the absence of journalists and their articles in a society, negative issues are hidden.

When we talk about a society change, it doesn’t mean to change a whole society and to change a government through revolution (colour revolution) and coup déta to topple a government but change negative thinking to the positive one for better life.

Through journalists’ work, justice, gender equality, child rights and education, especially the rights and education if girls, have been improved in world society,

Recognising the journalists’ role in the society, the Royal Government of Cambodia through the Ministry of Information on March 24, 2022 launched its first-year programme to grant gratitude awards to 14 selected veteran journalists who have had different careers since the 1970s and benefited the society.

Last but not least, I’d just like to urge all governments and authorities to free journalists and provide them the real press freedom and access to information. At the same time, I would also like to appeal all journalists to increase your capacity building and improve your professional and ethical works so that your news stories and opinion articles can be powerful to change your society for better life with sustainable and inclusive development.

God bless you all.

Thank You