Media freedom is undermined by a lack of information infrastructures and also skills and literacy to access and evaluate information. This was one of the talking points at the World Press Freedom Day marked in Thimphu today.
One of the themes this year is how difficulty in the access to quality information undermines media freedom. While media continues to grow in Bhutan, the home reality is that majority of Bhutanese lack access to quality information and necessary skills to determine quality in the information that they receive.
“Right now the question that confronts us is not so much on how much media should we have; the question is what kind of media, the content and information newspapers and radio stations are providing us. Like, do they cater us information that we need in new democracy. We need to be informed much better on what is happening and not just non-stop entertainment for instance,” said Siok Sian Pek-Dorji, Executive Director of the Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy.
Besides infrastructures, friendly policies like Right to Information Act are considered to aid good access to information for any democracy to success.
According to Needrup Zangpo, editor of one of the newspapers, Bhutan Observer said government should try to open up so that media and public could have better access to quality information. “The government should also try to put in place policies which can enable people and media to access information. In that sense, put in Right to Information Act as soon as possible. Already few years in democracy and without an RTI Act, democracy is not complete,” he added.
A member of the National Council, Tashi Wangmo said: “We need to analyse this, in the sense that press freedom translates to freedom of expression and freedom of expression, which has so much repercussion on the access of knowledge and information that enables every citizen to make decision. So therefore, if at all the RTI be introduced and discussed in parliament, definitely I would look at it trying to address any problem that is there today.”
According to experts, the problem is even more severe when the people lack access to the internet and computers. The International telecommunication Union records show more than four billion people still do not own a computer.
