Good Morning Cambodia, a podcast about Cambodia’s past, present and future success stories Watch →
Good Morning Cambodia, a podcast about Cambodia’s past, present and future success stories Watch →
When conflict erupted in Cambodia in December 2025, Jan Jessen did what he has done throughout his career. He reached out.
His call was not the first contact between strangers. Jessen and Kevin Jack of Good Morning, Cambodia! had known each other for seven years, connected through a mutual friend, Thorsten, who had lived in Cambodia before his death in 2020. That relationship meant the conversation did not begin with introductions or explanations. It began with urgency.
Within days, Jessen was asking how he could help and how he could get to Cambodia to report from the ground. That was not possible at the time. Instead, he stayed closely involved from afar, offering practical advice on safety, maintaining regular contact, and ensuring that his audience in Germany understood what was unfolding.
At the height of the crisis, during F-16 bombing raids over Preah Vihear city, Jessen and Claudia Peppermüller of Friedensdorf International called Kevin Jack while he was driving between displacement camps. That conversation became a turning point.
What followed was a coordinated effort, organized with Friedensdorf International, Good Morning, Cambodia!, and Comped, which secured a 100,000-dollar donation from Friedensdorf International for displaced families.
That episode reflects a larger pattern in Jessen’s work. He is not only a foreign correspondent moving between crises. He is, in the German sense of the word, a Mensch. The term carries no direct English equivalent. It refers to someone defined less by status than by reliability, decency, and a willingness to take responsibility for others without drawing attention to it.
Jessen’s career gives that word substance. He serves as Political Editor-in-Chief and Chief Reporter for the Funke Mediengruppe’s Neue Ruhr Zeitung (NRZ) and has worked in journalism for more than twenty-five years. Over that time, he has moved from local reporting into some of the most dangerous conflict zones in the world, returning to them repeatedly rather than treating them as one-time assignments.
His reporting has taken him to Ukraine throughout the Russian invasion, to the Shingal region of Iraq in the aftermath of the ISIS genocide against the Yazidi population, and to Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover. He focuses less on military movements or official statements and more on the people living through those events. That approach depends on trust, and trust is built by returning, not by passing through.
Part of what makes this work effective is the way it connects reporting to institutions capable of acting. His long-standing relationship with Friedensdorf International is central to that. The organization has spent decades providing medical care to children from war zones and crisis regions.
Jessen’s reporting has helped sustain that work. By documenting conditions in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and by maintaining visibility for those affected, he has contributed to the public awareness that organizations like Friedensdorf depend on. In concrete terms, that has supported medical evacuations and treatment flights that bring injured children to Germany for care they would not otherwise receive.
In March 2026, this body of work was recognized with the Press Freedom Prize awarded by Bündnis Zukunft Presse in Germany. The award honors journalists who continue reporting under pressure, in environments where facts are contested and risks are real. In Jessen’s case, it reflects years of consistent presence in places many newsrooms no longer cover.
Regional newspapers in Germany are not structured to support this kind of reporting. Foreign coverage is expensive, and financial pressures often push editors toward domestic priorities. Jessen has built a different model within those constraints, using a regional newsroom as a base for long-term reporting on war, displacement, and humanitarian crises.
For Cambodia, the impact has been direct. The connection he helped create led to meaningful support for displaced families at a moment when little international attention existed. That is why he is not only respected as a journalist, but regarded here as a friend and, in many ways, a brother to Cambodia.
His recognition in Germany marks professional achievement. In Cambodia, it carries a more personal meaning. It reflects a commitment that has been felt directly by the people he has chosen not to overlook. For that, he has our deep gratitude. His award is well deserved, not only for the risks he has taken, but for the consistency with which he has shown up, paid attention, and acted when it mattered.
Cambodia looks forward to welcoming him back as soon as he has the free time to come and enjoy a well-deserved break.
Building G, Phnom Penh Center, Corner of Sihanouk Blvd (274) & Sothearos Blvd (3), Phnom Penh, Cambodia
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