The Dragon's Voice

by Bunty Avieson

  ‘Self-censorship is a very powerful, complex culture. It is beyond journalism. We all do it day to day in our lives. As an editor you … sometimes read between the lines, sometimes don’t mention things, for a greater good. Is it nothing but the truth or is there a bigger truth? There are perspectives.’

  He explains that the censorship decisions he made as an editor came from understanding the sensibilities of Bhutanese society.

  ‘You don’t criticise the King. I guess in many ways we were criticising the King because he was head of government and we were criticising the government. But we didn’t criticise the King directly. It’s not that the King would get angry and put us in jail. It’s because Bhutanese society wouldn’t be able to take it. They have made that very clear. The Bhutanese people would get very, very hurt.’

  Kinley recounts an incident where a Dutch newspaper wrote an unfavourable piece about the Fourth King. Angry people called Kuensel and asked them to do something about it. ‘I heard the King’s reaction to the story was to laugh. He said, “It took them a long time to write something like this.” That was it. But the Bhutanese people weren’t laughing. They were very hurt and angry.’

  Bhutan Today runs an editorial criticising the process of kidu. It is the nearest thing to openly criticising His Majesty and it causes quite a stir. Like the photo of the bloody foetus, this story is considered in extreme poor taste. It has crossed a line the Bhutanese do not want crossed. The Bhutan Today editor is Indian, and various journalists tell me that a Bhutanese editor would have known better, that this error of judgment shows why foreigners should not be allowed to hold positions of influence. They do not understand local sensitivities.

  Siok Sian Pek-Dorji says: ‘The market freedom we have is startling. We call the kettle black. You don’t have to name names in a small society. Everyone knows. You have to master the art of writing in a way that everyone understands. You have more effect that way. Self-censorship comes from understanding your culture. By not naming people, not stating it, people in Bhutan understand.’

  20

  Brand Bhutan

  Bhutan Observer’s receptionist understands little English and my Sharchop is not improving. We have parallel conversations, which I’ve come to enjoy as a suitably absurd start to the day. I ask for a paperclip, and she tells me the time. When I admire her kira, she points to the photocopy machine.

  At the start of April she collects the bar heaters from all the staff, to store them till next winter. When she comes for mine I plead, beg and cajole her to let me keep it. She giggles as she wrenches it forcibly from my hands then returns a few minutes later with the Thimphu telephone book. But of course.

  Out of nowhere, the weather turns balmy. Looking up at Yeshe’s lhakhang on the hill, I see spots of red: rhododendrons are blooming. Marijuana, too, flourishes in the warmth. It grows wild by the side of the freeway, in patches on our lawn and even bursts through a crack in the ground where I park the car. The sun at this altitude causes it to thrive. It has become a problem with some of the youth in town who smoke it, which is against the law, but mostly it is seen as a weed and fed to the pigs. Marijuana’s active ingredient stores in the pig fat, which might explain why the Bhutanese like pork fat so much. When the weed overruns public spaces, Thimphu City Council burns it off, sending waves of heady smoke in all directions.

  A cafe quietly opens in the street behind Bhutan Observer’s offices. It is not the first cafe in Thimphu, but it is the first with a real espresso machine, a trained barista and wireless internet. The owner, Karma, recently returned from two years in Australia. While his wife studied for her master’s at the Australian National University, he waited tables at a Canberra cafe, learning the skills of a barista and how to run such a business. Karma’s Coffee is the result. It serves excellent coffee, which appeals to foreigners working here as well as Bhutanese who have studied in countries with Starbucks. Customers meet or work on their laptops while Beyoncé shakes her booty on the flat-screen television hung on the wall.

  When Karma opens his cafe, the advertising department invites him to advertise in Bhutan Observer. He laughs at the idea, saying the newspaper should pay him for the privilege of having his cafe in their pages. He is equally uninterested in co-operating with a reporter for a story on the About Town page, which features what is happening in Thimphu. He doesn’t read newspapers and sees no reason to be in one – as a story or an advertisement.

  The advertising department approaches another new cafe, this one offering a range of Western-style cakes, and the attitude is the same. You should pay me if you want my business in your newspaper.

  Few Bhutanese businesses understand advertising. The government is responsible for 95 per cent of advertisements in the country’s media. The other 5 per cent comes from a handful of the biggest businesses, such as Zimdra Automobiles and the hydropower companies. As I discovered with the Faces of Bhutan magazine, the rest of the business world only buys space when there is a royal occasion to commemorate, such as a coronation, an anniversary or the birthdays of the two Kings. The message is usually all about glory to His Majesty, and only occasionally do the companies actually mention their own businesses.

  But Phuntsho also has principles about who should be allowed to advertise in the pages of her newspaper. Bhutan Observer doesn’t carry advertisements for cars, because she feels that it would be unkind to make villagers desire something they can’t afford. She has also turned down an astrologer from India who claimed he could repair broken marriages. ‘That’s not helpful to our society,’ she says. She is emphatic: money or not, if it doesn’t benefit society, it’s not welcome in the pages of Bhutan Observer.

  Coming from the mainstream Australian media, working for companies owned by Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer, I’m not used to this approach. In the Murdoch–Packer business model, advertising provides money for wages, publishing costs and profit – lots of profit. That might work on Bhutan Times, but it’s clearly not Phuntsho’s vision for Bhutan Observer. We are going to have to find alternative income streams to supplement the advertising income. And they are going to have to meet Phuntsho’s formidable ethical code.

  Phuntsho shows me a list of international ‘days’ she found on Wikipedia. The list runs to three pages. She has underlined ones relevant to Bhutan – World Malaria Day, Tuberculosis Day, Global Handwashing Day, International Day for Biological Diversity and more.

  For World Malaria Day the Ministry of Health sponsors a colour lift-out explaining symptoms and how to treat them, as well as methods to stop mosquitoes breeding. It is informative, with photos of leaky pipes and marshy fields, all prime spots for mosquito breeding. It also features a message from the Health Minister and a photo of him looking dignified in his gho and orange shawl.

  It is more like a school essay in its style and presentation than an eye-catching advertisement. But I appreciate that it would hit its target audience very successfully. Bhutan doesn’t have billboards screaming catchphrases. There are no advertising flyers pasted to street signs or pushed through your letterbox. Companies don’t shout slogans at you on the television. We are not bombarded with messages or information at every point of our day – life here is gloriously bereft of such noise. And with a lack of advertising comes a lack of cynicism: this World Malaria Day lift-out will be read as much as any other page of the newspaper.

  Bhutan Observer uses this formula of sponsored lift-outs for public campaigns on World Tuberculosis Day, International Day for Biological Diversity and most of the other ‘days’ on Phuntsho’s list. So do Kuensel, Bhutan Times and Bhutan Today. It would seem that every newspaper office has downloaded the list from Wikipedia.

  The newspapers also target non-government organisations such as Danida (a Danish aid agency) and SNV (a Dutch aid agency). NGOs use advertising as a way to support the fledgling media industry and inject money into the community, while also communicating about an issue.
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br />   Phuntsho extends the sponsorship idea to a monthly supplement called BO Focus. It is an eight-page A5 booklet dedicated to a single issue such as the environment, food security or the importance of preserving Bhutanese culture. Here, Phuntsho provides a forum to pursue many of the topics that worry her. The newspaper approaches the relevant government department or NGO to sponsor it.

  As well as providing income, the sponsored supplements are a perfect fit for her vision of a socially responsible newspaper, informing the Bhutanese and reinforcing Bhutanese values. But Bhutan Observer does not get enough of them to be financially sustainable.

  Most of the government advertising in Bhutan is in the form of tenders. When the army plans to build a new wall in its barracks, it calls for tenders. When the Ministry of Health needs a photocopy machine, computer, tyres, or even stationery, it advertises its need in the newspaper. Businesses then submit a quote for their products or services. The style of advertising increases transparency, thereby helping prevent corruption.

  The government places all its tenders in Kuensel and then alternates them between everybody else. As well as providing a financial advantage, this serves to entrench Kuensel as the newspaper that must be read. For a tyre distributor in Thimphu or a stationery shop, you only need Kuensel to see all the government tenders. Phuntsho and the management at Bhutan Times and Bhutan Today rail against this system, but change is slow. Kuensel is a government habit.

  In an undeveloped economy like Bhutan’s, government tenders are also stifling the growth of advertising for other businesses. Instead of businesses advertising to the customer, it is the customer who advertises to businesses. Money is not coming into the country from Xerox or Sony. The Bhutanese government is paying to advertise its needs to their representatives.

  Furthermore, the predominance of government advertising makes the newspapers overly reliant on government favour, which ultimately can be dangerous. Bhutan Observer is fearless in its criticism of the government and specific ministries and departments. Phuntsho tells me the newspaper hasn’t been refused advertisements as a reaction to publishing negative stories – yet. She expects it will happen and, as she has no intention of compromising the newspaper’s editorial integrity, she dreads the day.

  Opposition leader Tshering Tobgay says these fears are shared by Bhutan Times. Senior journalists have told him it is sometimes difficult to be critical of government because of the money.

  ‘The advertisements and the felicitations come from the government. If you attack one office – Education, for instance – they feel Education will not be generous with them,’ he says.

  Tshering’s advice to the journalists was not to write about their economic vulnerability, as it would only alert the government departments to the power they have. But he was ignored.

  ‘I have said to the media, to senior journalists, don’t ever tell people that you need the money that comes only from government advertisements and you are having difficulty because of that, and it somehow compromises your ability to write freely. Don’t ever, ever write about it. But there have been editorials and opinions on that.’

  In any case, this form of advertising cannot be relied on over the long term either. The government has announced its intention to put all its tenders online, once national broadband has been rolled out across the country. As always, Bhutan Observer needs to find other income streams.

  Phuntsho hopes I might have some new ideas and asks me to work with the advertising department. Every Saturday I spend two hours with them, sipping tea in their sunny corner office and talking about the advertising end of the newspaper.

  The team is made up of seven men and women in their early twenties, all bright-eyed and enthusiastic. Only Gopal, the department head, has studied marketing. The rest have come to the newspaper straight from school and figured out the job along the way.

  Although I don’t have an advertising background either, I have worked in newspapers and magazines enough to know a little about how it works. But I am also wary. I feel unclean, tainted. Phuntsho wants my Western experience but not my Western morality. I’m not offended: desire and consumerism are ugly, and I don’t want to help them gain a foothold here. Advertorials, emotional manipulation, exaggeration, hype, dishonesty in any shape or form – those things are out. Benefiting all sentient beings is in.

  Over a few weeks of discussion with the advertising department, a picture of the advertising business emerges, and we start to form a strategy. While people may buy Bhutan Times to cut out the photos of the latest Korean actor, readers buy Bhutan Observer for the stories. Our readers are educated and often important decision-makers – they are people from the affluent end of town, which ought to be attractive to advertisers. We come up with the line ‘Trusted by the people you want to reach’, and decide to create a media kit for potential advertisers.

  We identify key sectors that we can target, such as banking and finance. Thimphu is also undergoing a building boom, with new shops and apartment blocks springing up everywhere. And with more than 80 per cent of the country involved in agriculture, we realise we need to find out more about what the Ministry of Agriculture is up to. What new programs are being trialled? How can we help?

  In addition, we need to convince all the Karmas of Thimphu – the owners of new small businesses – of the benefits of advertising. To do so, we come up with a plan to offer Karma free advertising space to trial a discount voucher. We can then collect all the vouchers as proof that advertising works, to show other potential advertisers.

  As the advertising pot is small in Bhutan, we also know we have to look outside the country. Many global products are sold here, particularly beauty brands, including Sunsilk and Garnier. Indian colleges also target potential Bhutanese students, and Bhutan Observer, which covers education better than the other newspapers, is well placed to take advantage of this. Bhutanese people also buy their house fittings from Indian towns across the border from Phuentsholing, so we will target the Indian companies to advertise in a lift-out building catalogue.

  We divide up the jobs and each Saturday morning we report our progress. At first, everyone is fired up and I am buoyed by their enthusiasm. It does not last. One by one they droop back into the office. Thimphu City Corporation will not provide any figures on construction in case their figures are wrong. The Higher Education Association will not release information on Indian schools because it is none of our business. The Ministry of Agriculture will not tell us anything about their programs, not even allowing us to take a pamphlet, in case we publish the information.

  I am dumbfounded. Each one of the advertising team is articulate, presentable and smart. What is going on here?

  I complain to Phuntsho, saying I do not understand why these people refuse to do what is simply their job. ‘These are government departments. This is public information. It should be available to anybody.’

  She is amused by my indignation. ‘They’re Bhutanese. Everyone is scared of getting into trouble. Better not to do anything than to do something wrong.’

  Still, I will not let the advertising team give up. We need that information. We role-play different arguments and they go back again and again. The staff are polite and charming, but determined. The excuses change, but not the outcome. ‘Only my boss has those figures and he is out of station.’ ‘We can’t find them.’ ‘They are out of date.’

  While they endure knockback after knockback, I struggle to find a media agency that will represent the paper to international companies. One agency in Mumbai that does sound keen already represents Kuensel. When I ask about the conflict of interest, they say it would not matter – they have not got them any advertising in years. Hmm.

  Nevertheless, we have some successes. The Ministry of Education suddenly provides a list of Indian schools accredited by the Bhutanese government. It turns out that the reason they wouldn’t give it to us before is that they didn’t have su
ch a list. No-one had ever typed all the names onto one page. But they wouldn’t say so directly.

  The list is gold for us. These are the Indian colleges seeking Bhutanese students – a perfect fit for Bhutan Observer.

  The director of Druk Holdings International, an umbrella organisation that liaises between government and businesses, comes in for a lively workshop with editorial and advertising. As a fan of the newspaper, he is thrilled to be invited and is full of news about which businesses are doing well, who to contact, all the gossip. After this meeting, Needrup plans a new economics page where the advertising department can sell space.

  I work on the media kit with Gopal and graphic designer Sushil. We download a media kit from the Indian Times and model ours on that. We explain the strengths of Bhutan Observer and why Bhutan is a growing market, particularly for building and education. Tenzin has the kits printed in Delhi and they look great: small, vivid orange folders with the Bhutan Observer eye on the front, and fact sheets and a CD-ROM inside. When Phuntsho goes to a private hospital in Delhi for an eye operation, she hands one to her surgeon just before she goes under the anaesthetic. Lots of potential patients in Bhutan, she tells him. Would you like to reach them?

  As for Karma, we explain how a voucher for his cafe would work, bringing him new customers and raising his profile. He is resolute – he will only agree if we pay him and reimburse him for the cost of every free coffee. He becomes a long-term challenge.

  I am aware that my approach is all over the place and think the advertising department deserve proper training from someone who actually knows what they are doing. Phuntsho is supportive. What do I have in mind? I tell her about an old colleague in Australia, Katherine Rossetti, who has her own consultancy for business strategy and development. She has run sales teams for both major magazine companies in Australia, and has held senior positions in media agencies and digital media companies. For two years she ran a newspaper company in Vietnam, even launching a magazine there. Phuntsho can see the benefits of having Katherine’s expertise and sets about convincing the government to fund her airfares.