21 February 2010 - Coinciding with His Majesty’s 30th birthday anniversary, His Majesty the King issued a royal kasho (charter) formally establishing the Bhutan media foundation. The media foundation is being established to support the development of mass media, so that it can carry out its roles and responsibilities in the [...]

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Private newspapers say that a circulation audit will see them losing out to old players in the market in terms of government ads Soon, newspapers with more contents of gross national happiness (GNH) and other national priorities may land up getting more government advertisements than those who run posters of Hollywood actors and give “rubbish” news. The [...]

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January 14, 2009: The bone of contention in the proposed Civil Service Bill, 2009, that had already been passed by the National Assembly in the last Assembly session is exclusively on Chapter 4 of the Bill. Some of the media practitioners say that two clauses are in variance directly with the Article 7 of the [...]

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The release of the new rules of content for media has defined what kind of media Bhutan is to have. Many things that are not allowed according to the BICMA rules are perfectly legal and even accepted in some parts of the world. Not to say that this means that our rules are overbear­ing. After all, laws [...]

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Mass media in Bhutan has enjoyed exceptional growth recently. During the last four years, five new newspapers – all privately owned – started operations in quick succession.  Bhutan Times, Bhutan Observer, Bhutan Today, Business Bhutan and The Journalist hit the newsstands on 30 April 2006, 2 June 2006, 30 October 2008, 26 September 2009 and [...]

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January 06, 2008 – Involving a minor, below 18 years, in any form of Bhutanese media without the consent of the parent or guardian will be an offence, according to the rules on content for Bhutanese ICT and media industry. The content rules on 12 sections, including violence, children, nudity, religion, language, crime and advertisements, [...]

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The Earth Ox year was not very good for Bhutan Times, as the paper made headlines with the resignation of its founding managing director, a financial crisis and a mass resignation of the editor and six reporters who accused the management of editorial interference. It seems the beginning of the New Year also doesn’t seem very [...]

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January 02, 2009: he three-day workshop on media ethics organised for Bhutanese media professionals came to an end yesterday, with Dr Venkat Iyer, barrister and lecturer at the University of Ulster, speaking about the journalistic ethics of reporting on vulnerable individuals and groups in society. The session also covered the pros and cons of prejudicial references [...]

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January 01, 2010 – Public interest is one of the driving factors that help determine the journalists’ decision to tell stories, some 20 Bhutanese journalists were told during a discussion on the ethical dimensions of journalism. Public interest, explained resource person Dr Venkat Iyer, includes detecting or exposing crime or serious impropriety, protecting public health and [...]

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December 29, 2009: The Bhutan Information, Communication and Media Authority (BICMA) has again cut off over a dozen foreign television channels from Bhutanese cable lines last week. With this order, the Bhutanese cable operators are allowed to distribute only 40 television channels. The restricted channels include a number of sports and a few movie channels. The decision [...]

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