SEAPA | Southeast Asian Press Alliance

Theme: Covering the Region in Rising Conflicts

While the end of Cold War brought peace to Cambodia and turned fragmented Southeast Asia into one organization under one roof, transnational problems have factored in and landed nation states and state and the people into conflicts of interests. These conflicts are far more complex as they require understandings of related laws and polices of parties involved, human rights and investigative reporting skills.

Nevertheless, journalists have failed to understand this regional trend and at times lagged behind. Many of them are used to short-live news scoop, ignoring investigative or in-depth reporting of these conflicts, which need patience and thorough understanding and neutrality.

The financial crisis showed that journalists were unprepared to act as an early warning system to the public of an impending crisis. They lacked ability and capacity to understand, let alone analyze the statistics and numerous economic data, for ordinary people available. They failed to gauge the magnitude of the crisis.

The 2003 Journalism Fellowship provided the opportunity for journalists to investigate some of the implications to the region as a result of the social, economic and political changes.