It was late on a Friday evening, just as most newsrooms were winding down for the weekend, when a call came through that set off a chain of events no one had expected.

The tip was unusual: a producer connected to the White House had stepped in front of the camera in Cambodia to conduct his very first on-record interview, and the result had gone viral.

By the next morning, it was already being shared by political heavyweights, praised by President Trump himself, and fuelling a movement in Cambodia to rename a highway in his honour.

The Cambodia Twist

The story at the centre of it all was extraordinary. Cambodia, still reeling from deadly clashes with Thailand, had seen President Trump intervene personally to broker a ceasefire.

The conflict had threatened to spiral into a regional war, but within days the shooting had stopped, trade routes had reopened, and both sides were back at the negotiating table.

In Phnom Penh, state journalist Soy Sopheap floated the idea of renaming National Highway 4, Cambodia’s busiest trade artery, originally built with American support, after Trump as a symbolic gesture of gratitude.

Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol endorsed the idea on camera during an interview on 15 August, the very day Trump was flying to meet Putin. That meant it could not have been influenced by the later European article, though Trump did see that piece after Kimberly Guilfoyle tweeted it.

Suddenly, a movement to christen “Trump Highway” was born.

An Unlikely Reporter

The man who captured that endorsement on video was not a seasoned foreign correspondent but Michael Alfaro, usually a behind-the-scenes producer. He had flown into Cambodia when other camera crews backed out, convinced the story would never be covered otherwise.

“I was supposed to be there as a lead producer,” Alfaro explained later. “But the team cancelled. Everyone was worried the fighting would explode. I thought, if Americans are on the ground, especially with White House press ties, it might stop things escalating. And I didn’t want Cambodia’s story to disappear just because the world was focused on Ukraine.”

Within hours of arriving in Phnom Penh, he was sitting opposite the Deputy Prime Minister for his first ever on-record interview.

“I told him millions of people online were already talking about renaming the highway, and I wanted his answer on record,” Alfaro recalled. “When he confirmed it, I knew this was real.”

From Obscurity To Viral

The footage was quickly verified and released through a free distribution service provided by NewsX, the parent company of Daily Goat, on a platform designed to circulate genuine editorial stories, not PR or marketing, to a network of publishers. That network includes National World, which publishes around 10 stories a day across its titles, and The European.

Jon Kirk, managing editor of The European, picked it up late in his shift and filed it before heading home.

By the next morning, the piece had exploded across platforms. Kimberly Guilfoyle reposted it, Elon Musk hit “like,” and it landed directly on Trump’s radar.

What began as a back-room producer’s impromptu reporting trip had become a global talking point.

Peace On The Border

Alfaro didn’t stop at the interview. He travelled six hours through rain to the Cambodian-Thai border, where he recorded frontline reports that went even more viral, at one point reaching 8 million views in a single hour. Cambodian and Thai officials, previously locked in a frozen standoff, suddenly resumed dialogue.

“Miracle one was that Trump stopped the war,” Alfaro said. “Miracle two was that they started talking again after years.”

Aftermath

Back in Phnom Penh, Prime Minister Hun Manet nominated Trump for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. On social media, memes declared him “a friend of Cambodia.” And on the ground, Alfaro found himself planning a campaign to help rebuild damaged border villages, a producer no longer behind the curtain, but a reporter whose first story had altered the narrative of an entire region.

For NewsX it was proof of concept: a little-noticed story, published without commercial expectation, had shifted from a late-Friday tip into an international headline.

Sometimes the most unlikely reporters tell the stories that matter most.