WNYC’s Political Director and Park Sloper, Andrea Bernstein, has been selected to train 20
Bhutanese reporters as the country prepares for its first-ever
elections to Bhutan’s national assembly.

It was the editor-in-chief of Bhutan’s first daily newspaper, Kuensel, who issued the invitation to Bernstein, who will be in Bhutan through the end of the week. She will be blogging here about her experience:

Three weeks ago, in the wee hours of January 29th, I was sitting in a
hotel room in Miami Beach, filing a story on what proved to be the last
rally of Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign. “Hi Andrea” read the
subject line of an email from a friend of mine, Kinley Dorji the
editor-in-chief of Bhutan’s first daily newspaper, and like me, a
Knight Fellow last year at Stanford University. “I don’t suppose you
have the time to come to Bhutan.” “Well, no” I thought, and after
several campaign road trips over the last months, I didn’t feel like I
DID have the time.

But…Bhutan, a land-locked Himalayan nation bordered
by China, India, and Nepal is not an easy place to get to. Tourism is
tightly controlled, and you need to be invited to go. And the reason I
was being invited? Irresistible. To train political reporters who are
covering the Kingdom’s (yes, it IS a kingdom) first elections ever. To
be a sort of midwife in the birth of a democracy. Who could say no? Not
me.

So despite the fact that I’d been missing my family and felt too
familiar with too many hotel rooms and airports, and despite the fact I
was at that very moment lamenting the fact that I was arriving in Miami
Beach at midnight only to check out at 7, I said Yes. And tomorrow I am
leaving for a flight that takes two days. I am going to the Himalayas.
After so many hours spent stuck at O’Hare airport on the way to and
from Des Moines, Iowa, I am going to a Buddhist Kingdom. If ever the
word “Karma” should be invoked, it is now.