Magnum Blog / The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 8: About rats, squashed dogs and getting published

The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 8: About rats, squashed dogs and getting published

First the rats: I wish you all a very happy New Year. A Khmer New Year that is... We're leaving the year of the pig for the year of the rat. I am a rat. 5th cycle. With some luck I 'll work my way through two more. It is one nice thing about Cambodia: if you forgot to celebrate Christian New Year, there is always the Chinese and the Khmer New Year to remind you that time passes by... Now the squashed dogs. The French newspapers have a term for the 'Man Bites Dog' stories which reads: 'la rubrique des chiens écrasés' (the 'squashed dogs section'). These stories are always considered with some contempt by 'serious' news readers. Because well, according to the 'serious' news readers they are not important stories compared to the 'big' stories. You know the 'big' stories: the events you can see simultaneously on 80% of the television screens worldwide and towards which hundreds of journalist are flocking. Yes... But what is big for who? And who decides what is big? Is big 'big' because the majority says it is big? Or is big 'big' because the major media tell the majority what is big? Or is it a minority telling the media what is big? There are many moments when an individual doesn't care about the 'big' events. For example the owner of the dog squashed by a runaway truck is convinced that the big story of the moment is his dead dog. He doesn't care if the Dalai Lama will have a discussion about Tibet with China. He cares about the disappearance of his dog. So do his children, his wife. The neighbours also think it is big news because they won't be disturbed by the barking at night. Another example are the 200 families who lost all their belongings in a fire this week in Phnom Penh. Hardly an event which will draw a crowd of foreign correspondents... Cambodia is far away.

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Cambodia. Phnom Penh. 11/04/2008: A fire gutted the houses of about 300 families in the Toeuk Thla (Clear Waters) slum. © John Vink/Magnum Photos And yet: about 1000 people who were living on the edge are now facing even harder times. If it isn't big news for Poughkeepsie (NY), for Fox News or the BBC, it is for them, their family, their friends (and for the real estate speculators). That was it for the rats and the squashed dogs. Now you should ask: 'What has the getting published to do with squashed dogs and rats?'

Amy de Wit

oh John Vink you have just cheered me up a lot, good luck with the budgeting.

herve

Well, John, what can I say, this website that's ...News I want to hear about!

Thanks, "going" there at this minute, no plane, no car, no bicycle, just a couple clicks! How about that? :-)

Andreas

I can`t wait to see the next Issue of The Khmer Chronicles

Katia Roberts

wonderful! but i didn't see an option for english on your site. is there?

John Vink

Katia: hopefully there will be... First we have to stabilise the budget for the Khmer (our main target) and the French versions, and then, with new funding (any suggestions?), we'll have an English version... Right now only the multimedia presentations in the K7Media section are in French and English (there aren't many words in them anyhow...).

Barbora Beckova

Amazing photo..

Hugh Gage

Hi John,

Thank you for writing about and photographing stories big and small. I'm genuinely sorry about the apparent decline in the "traditional" way of story telling as a PJ, there are so many wonderful images from the past when it was in its glory days. I hope Ka-Set works for you and your colleagues, it seems important to you.

Regarding Ka-Set, if you want to know a bit about what's being viewed on it and how many people come to it I suggest putting Google Analytics on it (http://www.google.com/analytics/). Its a completely FREE measurement tool and if you have a few spare moments in a busy week it will tell you things like how many people visit your site, which countries they come from, how they found your site, how long they spend on your site and what they look at plus much more.

I'm not a salesman and I have no reason to tell you about this apart from the fact that you might find the information useful and even interesting and I enjoy looking at your photos. Up to you.

Best of luck with it.

Regards, Hugh Gage

John Vink

Thanks Hugh. We're on Google Analytics since the first day. Makes us realise we definitely should have the website in English. Any ideas for funding?