While I was reading a blog post on The New York Times about how Google is using one of its last cards in a bid to compete in the social media world, I also found The Cambodia Daily, the nation’s oldest print newspaper, has its Twitter account.
The Daily has launched its Twitter profile on Wednesday, but it has already attracted nearly a hundred followers, which is an amazing figure. I thought it could get new media savvy people to keep talking about this online presence of this print newspaper for weeks. The main reason, I think, is that this paper has a huge potential to go head to head with The Phnom Penh Post, a more business-oriented English-language paper.
But after sending an email to a former Cambodia Daily journalist, I’ve learned that “The Twitter account is apparently a fake.” The journalist, asked in the email, “Wonder who did it….”
The first tweet from this account says:
“On behalf of all the staff at #Cambodia Daily, we are very pleased to announce that we have joined twitter. Stay tuned !” 11 Jan via web
Not yet officially verified, but…
On Twitter, Faine Greenwood tweeted saying here, here, and here:
“@ThCambodiaDaily is a fake account, everyone can return to their homes now. Now….who did it? #cambodiadaily #phnompenh”
“@DevEconHealth @thcambodiadaily I think the Cambodia Daily account is fake. (also, why leave out the “e” in “the”?)”
The Post, its main rival, has exploited the power of digital media for a couple of years. Until this 2012, The Phnom Penh Post now has more four thousand followers on the micro-blogging site and still counting.
What Cambodia’s traditional newspapers can do much now is get its news headlines out via social platforms like Twitter. Twitter is best suited for the media as well as citizens to report breaking news, and the RT (also known as re-tweet) helps spread the news message as we were used to word of mouth, but as fast as the travel of light.
