Media Freedom
In a young democracy like Bhutan the media is the most important dynamic. And given our demographic the media is basically run and managed by the young, the agents of change.
What then is the path the Bhutanese media should take as it tries to live up to responsibilities as a watch-dog and a watched dog by an engaged citizenry, the only ones to whom the media is accountable?
What is the model it should create for itself as comparisons are drawn, if unfairly with media in the region and elsewhere?
These and many other issues came up yesterday at a dialogue among local media professionals, who assessed the state of the Bhutanese media, media spokespersons of government agencies and experts from the region and beyond.
Seasoned journalists shared experiences of what it was like working in an era when the first newspaper was just about coming out and today’s editors pointed out what they saw as restrictions and challenges to media growth.
Bhutan’s recent drop in ranking in the press freedom index also came up in the dialogue where experts explained who puts together this ranking and whether it means anything or not. Bhutan’s ranking have leaped many places in the past with little bearing to what was happening on the ground.
The fact is that Bhutan today has a vibrant media with 11 newspapers, five radio stations, several new TV stations planning to start up and countless blog sites where people spew out anything they want. What one media misses or leaves out another media picks up and highlights. In the process the citizenry gets a more complete picture if they decide to read all the papers that get published.
A study of the coverage by the print media will indicate that it has written about practically everything that needs to be written about even if it does not have the depth a sophisticated section of the Bhutanese readership might be looking for. But the high numbers have also created a problem of financial stability, which affected freedom of expression and access to information.
The fact is that Bhutan is still in the process of building a free press and whether its playing role fully and contributing to a vibrant democracy is still a work in progress. Even as journalists must assert themselves to make the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution a reality, its role and responsibility needs to be defined in a rapidly changing society that has GNH as its guiding principle.
As one of the experts put it while the values of journalism are universal it must be adapted to the local context while preserving its democratic core. And journalists do not enjoy greater freedom than other citizens.
From Kuensel