[1] Since emerging from the communist governments of the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnam-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea regime, the Cambodian media sector has become one of Southeast Asia's most free.
However, the lack of professional journalism training and ethics along with the intimidation by both government and private interests limit the Cambodian media's influence.
The most authoritative print medium in 1987 was the ruling KPRP's biweekly journal, Pracheachon (The People), which was inaugurated in October 1985 to express the party's stand on domestic and international affairs.
The Voice of the Kampuchean People (VOKP) radio programs were broadcast in Khmer, Vietnamese, French, English, Lao, and Thai.
[2] As of March 1986, Television Kampuchea (TVK) operated two hours an evening, four days a week in the Phnom Penh area only.
The following month, the Soviet Union agreed to cooperate with Phnom Penh in the development of electronic media.
[2] Beginning in 1979, the Heng Samrin regime encouraged people to read official journals and to listen to the radio every day.
Widespread illiteracy and a scarcity of both print media and radio receivers, however, meant that few Cambodians could follow the government's suggestion.
The station was part of state-owned Radio Diffusion Nationale Khmere in 1970, operating 12 to 14 hours daily, with advertising as its primary income.
[citation needed] However, reporters for the established vernacular dailies and journalists working for wire services and the foreign-language press, generally keep to a standard of ethics.