Formerly a daily, Cambodge Soir will be resurrected as a 32-page French and Khmer
weekly paper on October 4. It will publish Thursdays with an initial press run of
3,000 copies, said Co-Editor-in-Chief Frédéric Amat. Amat said most
of the Cambodian staff, which went on strike in June after a colleague was fired,
have returned to the paper. Two new editorial staff are French while the co-editor,
Frédéric Amat was the Siem Reap correspondent. Amat said the new format
will contain more investigative reporting and features. "In the weekly we'll
have more room to write. We have time to make a deeper study." The paper is
adding an editorial and commentary section "which will allow the paper to comment
on events with a distinct point of view," Amat said. Despite the changes, he
said the paper will be fundamentally the same as it was before it shut down following
a disputed forestry industry article. "We are not going to write about fun places
to go out to dinner, we're not going to become an expat newspaper in that way. We
are still a newspaper for information on events in Cambodia. That's what our readers
want." "If something bad happens, we have to report on it." The paper
is partly funded by the International Organization of the Francophonie.
