Is Bhutanese Media really deprived of right to free media???? An analysis on the document produced by

As I browse through the Youtube,  a new short documentary was posted by TheDiplomat titled “Bhutan Fails to Foster Free Media”.  I myself once an amateur broadcast reporter and producer was also later fortunate to have served as an official media spokesperson of my agency and now as an upcoming lawyer, a number of things came into my mind. This is summary of gist of my personal reflections on Bhutanese media.

Article 7 of the Constitution explicitly lays down the freedom of press,
radio and broadcast as one of the fundamental rights. The Article 7 also ensure the right to information to all the citizens. These rights like any other constitutional rights are not absolute but a limited right given to the citizens against the state. Article 7 itself also empowers the state to put reasonable restrictions on specific grounds mentioned or bring in laws to restrict freedom of media as well as citizens. Ofcourse, if any person, legal or natural may if think such restrictions, Article gives the right to challenge the constitutional validity of such restriction either petitioning in the High Court or the Supreme Court. So far, state has not brought any mechanism either through executive or legislations on the freedom of media.

I remember, in early 2000, private newspapers started coming up, Bhutan Times being the first followed by Bhutan Observer. Since then, by late 2000, we had as many as twelve newspapers,  six radio stations and one television station. This excludes number of monthly, quarterly or biannual commercial magazines like Drukpa, Yeewong etc.  It all mushroomed at a time because everyone thought that, there was good business if one starts a private media because, nothing was written much about Bhutan and country was undergoing a sea change, from absolute monarchy to Constitutional Democracy. None of the private media seemed to realize that they were sailing into a ship in a small lake owned by a single company, the state. 

The State also didn't prevent anyone from starting the business. First, the Article of Constitution gives right to every citizen to practice a profession of his choice and gives the freedom of media. And government was also in favour of liberalization of privatization as private sector in Bhutan.

However, with the end of election, the coronation of His Majesty, the Royal Wedding, the fate of survival, quality and sustainability of media became an issue. Some media including the mainstream media Kuensel which is heavily funded by state started to decrease their frequency of publication from daily to thrice a week. Till, that it seemed that media didn't realize that their survival was so much dependent on the so called advertisement of the government. Government could not increase the advertisement budget, instead took numerous measures to reduce the cost was nation was facing a huge economic meltdown. It was also because,  if there was no need to advertise, for the sake of financing media, government could not increase the budget on such activities.

With no sign of improvement, some media requested BICMA to temporarily suspend their production, some went from daily to twice a week and many also requested the government to lift the mandatory publication in Dzongkha. This was followed by retrenchment of employees in some media houses and also numerous experienced journalists leaving the profession for greener pasture elsewhere. These vacant posts were replaced by numerous fresh graduates with some even without the basics on public policy and functioning of the nation. This made the government officials more reserved to supply information as a number of factual wrong in media also came into light showing the infancy of the media.

Thus, in my view, as a nation, Bhutan has not failed the free media. But the way, media functions in the country are to be blamed for both the state and the media houses themselves.

The state failed to put in adequate mechanisms to ensure that establishing a media house is not so simple as one may think. Any person was allowed to apply for license.  State also did not support media in providing adequate skills such as training of media persons for the last one decade since the liberalization of the media in the country. The state could have put in adequate measures such as requiring the applicant to have first certain amount of financial sustainability without relying only on government budget. Second, government could have controlled the license by requiring the media houses to have at least a number of editors as only those with bachelors in journalism. Thirdly, government could have also imposed restrictions on number of applicants in next five or ten years like our telecom service providers. If these measures were taken seriously, not many people would be able to start media houses so easily allowing the existing media to function more efficiently and sustain well.

At the same time, media also made a number of failures in themselves. None of the private media seemed to have carried a thorough reality study on the actual market and their sustainability in long terms, not even for ten years. Secondly, no media house seemed to have done their viability through readership in the country. Even, if all of us read, only about 700000 readers for 12 print media. There were also few who themselves were journalist thought that each of them could start a media house of their own. So some, started media houses themselves. Such move affected themselves as well the previous employer. They themselves had to share the existing state fund and their employee landed up in hiring less experienced person compromising on the quality as well as lost some share of the income with the new one. With such move, some media house even could not pay off the salary of their employees; the profit was too far from them. So, some of the media house died before death. Some started surviving with just one or two reporters and an editor doing everything making the media more vulnerable to disastrous mistakes and poor quality.

A few years ago, I could browse online at least six or seven of our print media. Today, I only do it only three, two virtually dead with updates once in a week or once in two weeks with just six or seven new articles. This means, we are back to two state owned media again, Kuensel and BBS. Thus, I feel it is not a real failure of media and definitely not on free media. If any media person is threatened, it amounts to criminal offence under the Penal Code. Law must take its course in such case.

Way forward

We must understand the loopholes now. India, a population of over 2 billion people, there are only about Eighty Thousand Newspapers including the regional publications.  That means for every three hundred thousand there is one paper or print media. Comparing this, in Bhutan, for every sixty thousand people in Bhutan including expatriates has one print media. Thus, it is very important both the state and media themselves to think of need of number of media in Bhutan. It is time that, media and the government must come to a single point to redraft the concept of media in Bhutan. The media themselves must push the government rather than shying away or running away keeping in the mind the media as one of the most important pillars of any democracy to succeed.

State on the other hand must come up with more conducive policies such as restricting the number of media both print and broadcast for next ten or so years, tax exemptions, advertisement guidelines. State must also provide adequate resources to improve the quality of the journalist through training both outside and inside the country. The political will must be improved through laws such as Right to Information Laws.  Institution of press council of Bhutan would also be one of the options.

The media also need to do some more work. First, they must study thoroughly the sustainability and their capability of running media house. With more and more youth graduating, media now has enough people in the market to choose better media persons with right qualifications and aptitude to serve for a longer term. Media must also ensure to gain the confidence of the public in general and public officials in particular so that they are accessible to more and more information.  Media must also understand that Bhutan is small nation, small population with a strong community bond and shy to talk to any outsider including media in general unlike people in most of our neighboring countries. Media must be responsible enough in handling the information. I had the opportunity to interact not only with national media but also with numerous international journalists over the years. I have found that most of our local reporters do not seem to bother to cross check the information they got. For instance, in 2011, after the interview, I gave my email address and also private number to call me to cross check the information. In spite of that, the report came next day with so many mistakes that the report was completely quoted everything wrong. When I called the reporter, I got the answer that, since they did not have enough articles for that day, the editor published. Media also tend to write quite often only on the basis of few information and often seen as one sided report. It is therefore, important for the media to do more research and investigation into the information they obtained. For instance, a couple of weeks back, BBS reported that some Bhutanese Visa got cancelled in Australia and next morning Kuensel reported otherwise. This is not a minor mistake but complete lack of hard work on the media persons. 

 Thus, in nutshell, its not late yet both for the media and state to revive the declining of media houses in the country. Both must join hand to work keeping in the mind the importance of role of media in any democracy.