Media update
Thimphu district court on June 29 ordered Bhutan Today, the country’s first daily newspaper, and its former reporter, to pay Nu 36,000 each for publishing a defamatory article against a woman.
The paper had published an article in opinion column entitled “The woman behind the MD”, in August 2009, which alleged that the wife of Construction Development Corporation Limited’s managing director was controlling the corporation, its employees and its vehicles. The article further says that the wife makes the employees do gardening, while those on the muster roll are used as laborers at their construction site. But the court ruled that she is just a housewife.
The MD’s wife Ugyen Lhamo sued the newspaper and the reporter for defamation. The newspaper and the reporter were charged with defamation in December 2009.
Reporter Wangchuk contested saying that nothing defamatory was published and that the information in the article was true. The reporter also submitted a voice recorded CD to the court, claiming that the article was written after gathering information from employees of CDCL.
The court, however, could not admit the CD as evidence, because the reporter had recorded the voice of the employees without their consent. This has set a precedence that reporters in the country cannot write investigative reporting on corruption since such reporting in several instance requires hiding identity and record things without speaker’s consent since basic facts of corruption cannot come out in formal interviews.
The court stated that the defendant could not convince the court that illegally obtaining of information and tapping voices from a public office were for public interest.
The district court ruled that the article was evidently defamatory in nature through wrongful facts. Since the defendant was employed by Bhutan Today as a news reporter and wrote the article in his capacity as an employee, the court held Bhutan Today equally liable.
The court also directed the defendants that the media is given a place in the Constitution to play a constructive role in a democratic society to inform the public accurately. “No reporter is given unrestricted and unbridled right to write a news article, based on assumption, which pose a tendency or create disharmony in a society,” court verdict reads.
DTH
In another development in media, the process for legalizing the DTH business is likely to be delayed by another either more months.
This is because Bhutan broadcasting service (BBS) and its local agent company in India, Greycells18 Media Ltd., are yet to sign an agreement.
The inclusion of the BBS channel in the imported DTH package is a major condition to be fulfilled by Airtel and its local partner in having rights to distribute in Bhutan.
Representatives from the Greycells18 Media, along with Airtel and a possible local partner, Uden cables (Samdrup Jongkhar), BBS, and the government met in June in Thimphu to try to finalize an agreement.
Besides, legal procedures, they also discussed the rates and market in Bhutan.