Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith addresses his subordinates last year. Hong Menea
Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith on Friday called on newspapers and radio stations to run corrections to errors made in reporting when requested.
At the ministry’s annual meeting, Kanharith said there had been occasions when corrections had been requested but had not been run.
Without identifying the media outlets concerned, he said he did not want to see lawsuits filed against journalists over errors.
Kanharith said the ministry had received recommendations on amendments to the Law on the Press addressing incorrect reporting.
He urged ministry officials to respond quickly to incorrect or misleading media reports.
“If the ministry’s officials react to incorrect information quickly, the matter will be resolved. However, if an individual or organisation thinks their reputation or business has been affected, they could sue [the journalist concerned]."
“However, the ministry has the policy to respond to [incorrect reporting] speedily, he said.”
A 2018 report from the Ministry of Information states that Cambodia has more than 1,600 news organisations, including 439 newspapers, 194 magazines and 220 radio stations.
Pen Bona, the president of the Club of Cambodian Journalists, said journalists have a duty to correct wrong information and republish as the law requires. Journalists also have the right to defend their reporting with evidence if a complaint is made.
“Professional media organisations always seriously examine and edit their news in order to report it correctly. But some media stations, especially online news outlets that don’t have licences, rarely adhere to this responsibility."
“They just see something and publish it quickly without verifying it with a reliable source, so sometimes, a story can be wrongly reported,” he said.
Leang Delux, executive director of Thmey Thmey Online News, said professional journalists always verify their facts before publishing information, but experience showed that problems arose due to a lack of fact-checking or when sources retracted what they had said.
Article 10 of the Press Law states that if a person considers a news story false and damaging to his honour or dignity, that person has the right to demand a retraction or a reply from the publisher, or they can file a complaint of defamation and libel for harming their honour or dignity.
The ministry has measures to investigate outlets that harm media ethics as stated in the Law on the Press and the Constitution, and to investigate those that operate without a licence or that have not registered with the ministry.
