Kuensel’s reporter Phuntsho Choden won award for best investigative reporting award. Though the budding media industry and journalism beginners are yet to get better at reporting beat and soft news, it is unclear on what basis the government categorized reports as investigative reporting.

Choden’s reporting on the short supply and poor quality of school textbooks was termed the best investigative reporting.

Kuensel won three more awards: The Dark Side of Night Hunting, a feature by Tashi Dema, recognized as the most prominent social issue and Tenzin Dorji was given the best photographer.

For opinion pieces, all three papers (since Bhutan today daily was not included in the contest) were awarded. Kuensel’s deputy editor Kencho Wangdi’s Making Our Religion Relevant, Bhutan Times’ sub-editor Mitra Raj’s First Breach, and Bhutan Observer’s reporter Needrup Zangpo’s Demolish the Wall.

Observer’s Dzongkha editorial team won the best Dzongkha edition of the year beside  its cartoonist Chimmi R Namgyel receiving best newspaper cartoon award for Zero Tolerance.

Bhutan Times  got three more awards, including the Best Newspaper design. Its editor Gopilal Acharya was awarded for best business report for his article, Heartbreak House. Karma Singye Dorji from the same paper, who happened to be one of the three judges, received best political report for his article One Year of Democracy.

Radio Valley (RV)’s Suja Show, by Ugyen Wangmo, was declared the most entertaining program while Mang Ghi Damkha or Music on Demand’s Pema Wangchuk was the best radio host of the year.

Two other radio stations, Centennial Radio and Kuzoo FM knocked out of the scene.

Government owned Bhutan Broadcasting Service (BBS) took three: Dawa as the best TV anchor and Damcho Wangchuk as most informative radio program for his coverage of the police-youth partnership program. And Neten Dorjee’s documentary on King Jigme Wangchuck was awarded the best television program of the year.

Temzing Lamsang, who was more critical of the government policies and corruptions in public offices, was given not a single award despite his few well written articles.

Two other judges were secretary of the ministry of information and communications and former Kuensel editor Kinley Dorji Kay Kirby Dorji, a former journalist with Los Angeles Times.

In his presentation made at the regional conference in Kathmandu organized jointly by Panos South Asia, UNESCO and Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) marking the international press freedom day, reporter or Bhutan Observer Nedrup Zangpo also outlined the difficulties Bhutanese media have been facing for sustenance.

Lack of advertisement, low rate of circulation and lack of adequate media professionals are some of the hurdles he pointed out of the Bhutanese media. He said, the government promoted its mouthpiece Kuensel as daily paper recently and most advertisement from the government are given only to Kuensel. The private companies rarely come up for advertisement, leading to collateral hindrances for sustainability to budding media industry of this youngest democracy.

In his presentation entitled ‘A scenario of media law in Bhutan’, he further said all journalists working with Bhutanese media inside the country have very little or no information about professional journalism and its ethics.
Zangpo also said the politicians and bureaucracy have not changed their behavior with media though political system has changed which he cited as lack of knowledge on them regarding the importance of media for national development.  He said they have been questioned ‘why’, whenever journalists write opinion pieces in newspapers. “Bureaucrats are not used to in accepting critical stories,” he said. 

He criticized the code conduct prepared by the government, saying it has been imposed without consent of the journalists. The code was prepared by the previous non-democratic government and has not been reviewed since then.

However, Zongpo mention that with the change in politics and emergence of Bhutan Observer and Bhutan Times, two dailies, Bhutanese media have been doing good on their part despite hurdles and challenges.

Zangpo quoted politicians during the recent discussion between media and parliamentarians in the initiative of Center for Media and Democracy, saying “We need happy stories as we say Gross National Happiness”.

Two papers of Bhutanese media are scheduled to be presented at the conference from Bhutan by T. P. Mishra (editor) and Vidhyapati Mishra (manager) of Bhutan News Service and APFAnews.com.

The media is a watering hole for all the stakeholders in society. Of late, there have been genuine concerns of the negative effects of unbridled mass media, especially on our youth: TV is drenched with graphic scenes of expertly choreographed brutality and uncensored adult content, radio is spewing a whole new youth sub-culture of un-mindful hedonism and colloquial English slang, et al. There is a growing tide of changing societal values.

The only way to arrest such unconscious trends is with a conscious policy. Hence, a Bhutanese Media Model is the ‘higher’ mandate of our policy makers. The truth is that we have negotiated Media Laws without instituting a Media Policy. This is like booking a good travel agency, only to go nowhere. So, in the ensuing melee, the media, government and public are all at each other’s throats.

A Bhutanese Media Model will uphold and transmit our national ethos. The ontology underlying our national identity is a homogeneous entity, unified by a singular ideology (GNH) and built on a sense of ‘collective agency’ (Democracy). Even with a progressive agenda, we remain fundamentally a holistic nation. A Bhutanese Media Model is the good mechanism to infuse our national ethos into mainstream society, via the omnipresent free media.

The media must not suffer the unsavoury fate of some aspects of our education system. Let us get honest now. Today, the exploration of our kingdom, in its entire expanse, is being led by the outside world. Be it on GNH conferences, Buddhist researches and translation projects, organic farming like hazel nut cultivation, et al. Our modern education has bred a generation with no capacity or disposition to synergize our traditional value systems into a modern era.

So, the Bhutanese Media Model must define conscious roles for our media. No entity in a holistic society is treated in abstract isolation. As a cohesive part of the ‘bigger picture’, the media must play its part responsibly. The kind of media content must be dictated by the ‘needs’ of our national objectives and not by the ‘wants’ of narrow interests.

Also, without a conscious Media Policy, the tourism policy of ‘High Value, Low Volume’ will fly out of the window of every living room with DISH TV – where the ‘foreign’ invasion will be mounted, on a daily basis.

The Bhutanese Media Model would not encroach on the independence of free media. The space for ‘persuasion by dint of rational argument,’ and contradictions is valued in our dialectical systems and encapsulated in our ‘Lozey’ traditions. This stance is based on the dictum of the Middle Path philosophy that ‘all truth is relative’. It is a philosophy that goes against all extreme positions and values nuanced resolutions.

The Bhutanese Media Model must also address the sustainability of the free media in the interest of democracy. Bhutanese media, unlike most other countries, is almost totally dependent on the government. It is a test of media integrity to maintain an independent socio-political stance in the face of such constraints. Most often, the net result is to pander to the ‘lowest common denominator’ of crass commercialization, sensationalism and lack of objectivity. When such compromises happen, it is like chopping off our feet when we want shoes.

The good news is that a Bhutanese Media Model is possible. The only question is – Is the government a conscious and benevolent ‘Big Brother’?

(From Bhutan Observer weekly, March 27, 2009)

The case has been filed at the Thimphu district court by Dorji and his assistant Tenpa Wangdi of Meto transport on January 21.

They said they were sacked from jobs on January 17 following a newspaper story which said the bus carried extra passengers, overcharged and misbehaved with them. The bus was on its way from Trashigang to Thimphu on January 6.

‘Troubled Bus’, the news story in the paper stated that the bus carried nine extra passengers without issuing tickets but charging the same fare. The bus had a capacity of 19 passengers.

Dorji rejected all charges claiming the news to be wrong since it was impossible to carry extra passengers since there were several check posts, RSTA officials and police inspection along the way.

Dorji said the news appeared on the newspaper because the reporter was charged Nu 100 for a carton and the news was personally motivated. But The paper’s managing editor Needrup Zangpo said they stand by the reporter since it was factual.