 |
| Says it all |
Finally BBS featured a story on dying Bhutanese
print (private) media the other day. The report said it was due to heavy decrease in
revenues owing to decrease in government sponsored advertisements. And it was
pointed out that some media firms are planning to layoff their people while
others I am told have not paid their employees for sometime now. A media firm
that I know has not yet paid their employees December 2012’s salary. It is
disturbing.
On one hand we keep saying that we need
a vibrant media for our democracy to function but then a few years into our democracy, we are back to square one.
With the death of private newspapers we will only have some state backed media that will run the shows.
The next round of elections is around the
corner and our media show no sign of improvement. I was told of mass exodus of
senior and experienced reporters and editors from private papers. Authorities
blame on the number of papers. Maybe the way we issued licenses to all Dorji,
Dawa and Duba was flawed. People wanted to run papers because they felt that’s
where the money was. Now many are lamenting. We have more than 10 newspapers in
the country! That’s a big number for a small country!
And as a follow up action – this is what I think private
print media should do: form a big group and come up with a paper instead. Yes, I
am suggesting collaboration and not competition. Some will laugh at my
suggestion. But that’s okay! This way I think they can compete with the
nation’s daily. Because right now apparently it seems there are only two papers
in the country – Kuensel and private newspapers and accordingly the two receive
the equal share of ads.
Collaboration will not create a condition for downsizing.
Otherwise at this rate soon many people will lose their livelihoods or at the
same time media firms will lose good people to other sectors!
Last time around we accorded a high priority to
media. Don’t we need a similar media engagement in the coming elections? Let’s promote a vibrant democracy. Let’s save
our media from the clutches of their "death". And this time let's mean it too!
your picture says it all but enjoyed reading it as much
ReplyDelete