It has been a year since Bhutan began receiving daily newspapers.

Bhutan Today, the country’s first daily, was launched on the 30th of October last year. And what a year it has been.

The year that followed saw major events in the nation, the world and the newspaper industry as well.

This paper was privileged to cover the most important event in a century, a hundred years of the beloved mon­archy, and the coronation of Bhutan’s fifth Druk Gyalpo.

The world changed, and so did our country last year, setting in motion a series of irreversible changes with the introduction of parliamentary democracy. Bhutan Today also began its journey on this significant year, and believed that it too had an important role to play in this new democracy.

When this paper was first released, despite many hur­dles, with a group of rookie reporters who had got a two week crash course in journalism and a month of field training, the result was a flimsy, grey piece of triumph.

When a reader saw the paper, they compared its qual­ity to the other papers, those that have been around for decades, or at least a few years, none of which were daily, and perhaps didn’t understand.

But for those people who were working in this com­pany, who went out to attempt something that had never been done before, the first issue was an achievement that was unparalleled.

Thus began the journey of Bhutan Today, the paper which, some prophesied, would die out in three months. The rookie reporters learnt slowly. They learnt to recog­nise stories and issues, and people.

They became faces known to the newsmakers, people who began to realise that what they did was beyond a nine to five job meant to sustain life. It was a job filled with responsibility.

From staying overnight at the office, proofreading the paper bleary eyed, the team learnt to be more efficient.

Every new idea successfully executed is a success, ev­ery progress a joy. And in our one year, when we read the paper that we launched last year and the paper that we print today, we can see how each of us has grown.

Many of the reporters here say that they have probably not learnt so much in their whole lives that they have learnt in this one year, working as a journalist in a daily paper for a year. Every day is like a crash course in a new subject.

In the event of one year of publishing, Bhutan Today is coming out with a new look, a better, more sophisti­cated version from tomorrow, which in a way reflects the changes that every employee and the company itself has undergone in this past one year.

In a way, the date chosen for the new-look paper is our tribute too to, and request for continued guidance from the Fifth Druk Gyalpo, whose coronation day last year was November 1.

Private newspapers in this country may be in trouble, but Bhutan Today is far from closing down. We will work to bring the news to you every day, and also to make sure that every issue is better than the last.

We would like to thank our readers who have been with us for a year, and we welcome them to a new journey of better and better journalism.

Thank you very much indeed.