From gov’t lips to Fresh’s readers

IT’S hard to avoid Fresh News these days. From last year’s major breaking news about the arrest warrant for opposition leader Sam Rainsy to its daily exclusives on new government orders, the site has for all intents and purposes evolved into the state’s unofficial news agency over the past two years.

Almost no one else breaks major government news anymore, and no other outlet can boast the same sources inside the government. The site posts almost 100 articles a day, many simply verbatim ministerial decrees published without commentary or hints about sourcing.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has also routinely praised Fresh News, which began its life as a barebones smartphone app in May 2014, for its speed and the tenor of its articles, and has more than once granted the outlet exclusive interviews – a rarity for the premier since the late 1990s.

Yet with access comes constraints, and any readers who restricted their news consumption to Fresh News would likely come away with a perspective about government officials and the opposition party peculiarly similar to that promoted by the Cambodian People’s Party.

“Fresh News is a CPPaligned news service, so they don’t have freedom to report about sensitive issues of the government. They can only act as the mouthpiece of the government and the powerful people,” said Sun Narin, a former manager at VOD CONTINUED

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