Lok savun,
I dont know who’s your message is reference to but personally I dont accuse
someone in particularly. I just raise some abnormalities inside the RFA
service. I think cpp does want to have a full hand over RFA and use it their
propagandist tool inside and out side the country. There are cpp people
infiltrated among RFA stuffs and try to sabotage the rfa service. Often
reports of rfa from Cambodia talked about cpp and hun sen glory. Although
there are few good people (at least two) inside RFA that have done good jobs
for Khmer. Of course there is something wrong in rfa khmer service. Who is
responsible? That’s difficult to judge. I don’t believe that lok kem sos has
full control over rfa Khmer service, stuffs and all things come around. He
is not in easy position.
Mr mayarith figure lok kem sos to hun sen as a resistant or an obstacle for
cpp to use RFA as its propagandist tool. At time some people try to seek
down lok kem sos. So people should be aware before pointing finger to charge
someone or you will fall in the trick of evils. There are those who born to
be assassins, expert in vices and evilness. It is their instinct to survive
and expand their race. This kind of people can do anything as they can to
reach their needs with no tiny sense of regret or guilt.
RFA must be a service to promote freedom and democracy. Not to support
tyranny and killing
Cheers
Bopha Angkor
For your information see attached
> In Camdisc <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> HOW DO YOU BLAME ACCUSING KEM SOS AS " PRO CPP". WHEN THE NEWS YOU
> ARE READING THAT ATTACKING KEM SOS AND RFA WAS COMING FROM PRO CPP
> WEBSITE LIKE DAP-NEWS.COM and OTHERS?
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--- Begin Message ---
*From:* Cambodia Thoughts [mailto:[email protected]]
*Sent:* Friday, August 28, 2009 10:35 AM
*To:* Daniel Southerland
*Subject:* Statement of Grievance from RFA Phnom Penh staff
Dear Dan,
We, some of the Phnom Penh staff, who jointly author this statement, would
like to inform you of the current unhealthy atmosphere that is permeating
the RFA Khmer Service since the recent reform that saw the appointment
without public notice of a broadcaster named Sam Poly as the Service's
Deputy Director replacing Deputy Director Sam Borin (who has been demoted to
Senior Editor), and the resignation of Senior Editor Som Sattana for the
personal reason that he could not stand working under the command of a
person who, in his eyes, was unqualified even to be a simple broadcaster.
Because of the atmosphere of fear and intimidation generated by the new
management (repeated punitive measures and constant threat against employees
in Phnom Penh ), we deem it necessary to withhold our names for the time
being. We feel we are still living under the Khmer Rouge or communist
system. We are giving you the reasons why we have become so scared to come
forth and report to you openly and why we are so unhappy working for RFA in
this so-called era of change.
*The RFA Khmer Service’s Problems:*
*Incompetency of the leaders*
Those in management lack background and experience in journalism. Therefore,
their management style is to rule by instilling fear not by inspiring
examples. It is an open secret that both the Director and the newly promoted
Deputy Director are not capable of producing even a mediocre feature or ho
feed. Both have neither productivity nor professionalism.
*Lack of a clear work plan or goal*
The Director has not set any work plan or goal in guiding the Service’s
work. He just arbitrarily imposes rules on stringers, editors and
broadcasters. For example, he would blame a Phnom Penh stringer for
exceeding the length limit of a feature by a few second but the next day he
would allow a broadcaster in D.C. to produce a feature far exceeding the
length limit by just saying that it was a special case. He would blame a
stringer for including too long a sound bite in his report but soon after
that he would turn a deaf ear on an over-one-minute-long sound bite used by
another person. These are just a few examples of his arbitrariness and
inconsistent character. Recently, management set up an editing process by
requiring two editors to work on the same shift without explaining why.
Later on, management changed the editing process by having only one editor
working at a time, and again without giving any reason. We have the feeling
that we are being used as human guinea pigs for experiments on new methods
of editing. Certainly, we agree that a change for the better is acceptable
but what they have been doing is creating “unnecessary” complexity, thus
wasting everybody’s time and resources. Before making any reform, there
should be a thorough study or analysis to identify strengths and weaknesses
or shortcomings; but they just changed the editing process back and forth
arbitrarily and without giving the affected workers in Phnom Penh any
reasonable explanations or clarification.
*Lack of responsibility*
Those in the Khmer Service’s management lack responsibility; they blame
stringers when problems or errors are found in stories already aired that
had gone through editing by editors, senior editors and even the director or
deputy director before being put on air. They should give constructive
feedbacks to the concerned stringers rather than blaming them while using an
unprofessional language with a threatening undertone. Some of the examples
sound like this: “RFA pays you high salaries so you should work hard enough
to respond to management’s requirement;” “Do it or you will get
consequences...” The phrase “RFA pays you …” implies that management uses
money to pressure stringers and considers that we just work for money while
in reality we risk our lives in our line of duty. Management and, in
retrospect, RFA as a whole should be smart and considerate enough to
understand that we, the Khmer workers, do not think only about payment; we
also care about our professionalism, we have our conscience, and we cherish
our freedom of expression, values highly appreciated in the USA and core
concepts that have led to the establishment of the RFA Khmer Service. This
attitude of the Khmer Service’s leaders results in resentment and
discouragement among our stringers who put their lives in danger for the
discharge of their duties. This process encourages a sense that you have to
please your superiors and it does not promote a good teamwork at all.
*Promotion is not merit-based *
* *
Recently, a broadcaster who was mentioned in the most recent evaluation as
the one who repeatedly came up with MCs that were redundant with the leads
of stringers’ reports and as the one who poorly wrote news stories because
of his limited knowledge of the Khmer language has been promoted to the post
of Deputy Director of the Khmer Service. Even Director Kem Sos himself
acknowledged that the gentleman is not qualified in terms of productivity
and professionalism but he said he promoted him because he was “easy to
communicate with.”
How can we talk about productivity and professionalism when a man who has
never ever produced a feature or a hot feed that could be used as example
for the rest of the service is given a deputy directorship? Both the
Director and Deputy Director set no examples in terms of productivity and
professionalism for those working under them.
We think that knowledge/experience in journalism and the sense of
professionalism are important for people wielding top management roles
because they are decision makers who edit and approve all stories to be put
on air. Consequently, it is not surprising that we all have legitimate
concern over the quality of our future programs.
*Leaders restrict staff’s freedom*
* *
The service management restricts freedom of the RFA Phnom Penh staff to
argue and report back the errors or mistakes made by their D.C. colleagues
who are affiliated with the Director and new Deputy Director while millions
of listeners already hear those mistakes. Arguments related to report
writing or editing decisions of the chosen few in D.C. are blamed and
swiftly punished. One of the field editors in Phnom Penh has already been
punished for "insubordination" just because he did not edit out a phrase,
which was not wrong, in his feature as erroneously and arbitrarily
instructed by the new Deputy Director. This punishment has frightened all
staff members and discouraged them from doing their job professionally. As a
result, most Phnom Penh staffers no longer care about what is right or what
is wrong.
With the above-mentioned, we earnestly demand the following:
- Restructure the management team of the Khmer Service;
- Review the current working system and procedures;
- Create a mechanism to ensure professionalism, transparency,
productivity and fair treatment for the entire staff;
- Adopt a policy that would encourage staff promotion and
motivation.
- Hire an independent expert to evaluate management performance.
We strongly hope that our concerns would be taken into consideration and
fair and transparent solution found to maintain the long-standing reputation
of RFA as a whole and for the interests of RFA Khmer Service as well as
Cambodian people.
Thanks for your consideration, courtesy and kindness.
--- End Message ---
