Dasho Dasho ( Dzongkha: དྲག་ཤོས; Wylie: ''Drag-shos'') (lit. Excellent One) is a Bhutanese honorific that is bestowed upon individuals, along with a red scarf kabney, by the Druk Gyalpo. In common practice, however, many senior government ...

'' Kinley Dorji (

Dzongkha Dzongkha (; ) is a Sino-Tibetan language that is the official and national language of Bhutan. It is written using the Tibetan script. The word means "the language of the fortress", from ' "fortress" and ' "language". , Dzongkha had 171,080 n ...

: ཀུན་ལེགས་རྡོ་རྗེ་; Wylie: ''Kun-legs Rdo-rje'') was Bhutan's first trained journalist who became founder, then

managing director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

and

editor in chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

of ''

Kuensel {{Contains special characters, Tibetan ''Kuensel'' ( dz, ཀུན་གསལ།, ''Clarity'') is the national newspaper of the Kingdom of Bhutan. It was the only local newspaper available in Bhutan until 2006 when two more newspapers were la ...

,''

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

's national

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

. In 2009 he became Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Communications, a position he held until 2016.Wangdi, K, 2009, ‘The man with a pen and purpose’, ''Kuensel'', March 28 Dorji was sent to Australia by the Fourth King to study journalism in the 1980s, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from

Mitchell College Mitchell College is a private college in New London, Connecticut. In Fall 2020 it had an enrollment of 572 students and a faculty of 68. Admission rate was 70%. The college offers associate and bachelor's degrees in fourteen subjects. Academ ...

, now Charles Sturt University, situated in country Bathurst. He also completed a Master of Journalism at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in New York, and, in 2007, was awarded a John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

for his development of media in emerging democracies. In 2019 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

for his contribution to global journalism. When Dorji left ''Kuensel'' in 2009 to take up his government position, journalist Kencho Wangdi paid homage to his leadership:

His editorial was a staple for a generation of educated Bhutanese and it mirrored, with all its problems, the growth of Bhutan. He walked a fine line between criticism and appeasement of the government and many a time was caught in between...The changes came slowly and cautiously but always forwardly…He was ''Kuensel’s'' intellectual conscience...He loathed a sensationally written story, or even a headline. He wrote in one of his editorials: ‘All of us who professionally use the media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarise that society. We can brutalise it. Or we can help lift it to a higher level.

He published Bhutan’s first book on Literary Journalism, titled ''Within the Realm of Happiness'', which includes 13 personal essays on Bhutanese culture. Dorji has been a strong proponent of

Gross National Happiness Gross National Happiness (GNH), sometimes called Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH), is a philosophy that guides the government of Bhutan. It includes an index which is used to measure the collective happiness and well-being of a population. Gross Nat ...

(GNH) as an alternative for

Human Development Human development may refer to: * Development of the human body * Developmental psychology * Human development (economics) * Human Development Index, an index used to rank countries by level of human development * Human evolution, the prehistoric ...

. He lives in Thimphu with his three children and wife, Siok San Pek-Dorji, the founding executive director of Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy. Now retired, Kinley maintains many roles in the community, including editor-in-chief of ''Druk Journal'', director of the Bhutan Trust Fund Board, director of the Youth Development Fund Board, a member of the UNESCO National Commission, and a member of the Council of Royal University of Bhutan. On 9 December 2006,Apfanews
/ref> Dorji was awarded the prestigious Royal Red Scarf by the Fourth King, the Bhutanese equivalent of a knighthood, which conferred on him the title ''Dasho'' (Sir).

References

Scouting in Bhutan Year of birth missing (living people) Living people English-language writers from Bhutan

External links

From Bathurst to Bhutan and beyond: meet Andrew Denton and Kinley Dorji: https://www.sydney.edu.au/engage/events-sponsorships/sydney-ideas/2019/dasho-kinley-dorji-and-andrew-denton.html Bringing Happiness to New Heights from Bhutan to Banff - Dasho Kinley Dorji and David Suzuki: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ0sQP9D7sA {{Bhutan-bio-stub Bhutanese journalists