Among all media in Cambodia, radio is my most favorite medium in getting both news and entertaining stuff, due to convenience and easy accessibility. In my bedroom, I have a small battery-used radio bought a few years ago. It has become my main source of news especially because I have almost no time watching TV and surfing Internet for news.
Usually I listen to radio early in the morning, before going to school and late at night until there are no more programs on radio, around 12 o’clock, before I go to bed. To get news on radio, I listen to three programs—Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Radio France International (RFI).
Voice of America is the least favorite program among the three. As its name suggested, VOA’s most of news content is about America while only a few is about Cambodia. Radio Free Asia is quite an important source to get news for me. Repeatedly, RFA is said to have a tendency to criticize government because it reports what a so-called sensitive issues in Cambodian society. Most of the time, it broadcasts news which other media do not frequently report such as poverty, corruption, land grabbing, land eviction so on and so forth. However, this is not always a case. RFA also professionally reports news about government achievement and main activity like meeting of Cambodian and Thai officials on the issue of Preah Vihea temple. If you want to know other side of Cambodia, RFA is recommended. Radio France International is a French radio program speaking Khmer. RFI is my most reliable source of news because it reports in balance both good and bad sides of government and society. Moreover, RFI has various formats of news reporting including hot news, feature, commentary, interview and review. The news review in RFI is very interesting in a way that every day the presenter quotes important piece of news from some main newspaper like Raksmey Kampuchea, Koh Santepheap, and Monesica. Raksmey Kampuchea and Koh Santepheap have tendency toward government whereas Monesica is opposition-party affiliated. However, recently I miss most of news content from RFI. This is not because I miss the day but it’s because RFI has some internal problems. Because staffs of RFI join demonstration in France, there is no broadcasting at all. Despite the problem, RFI remains the most consistent source of news, personally.
