Year ender 13 February, 2010 - As a newspaper that pioneered print journalism in the country, we are quick to leap at the least opportunity to point out flaws and bash the government, corporate or private sector.

Attempts were made to curb errors that indicate negligence much before it went six days a week. The idea was to bring down factual, grammatical, typographical, contextual or other errors that were rampant as a weekly.

Despite ample time at hand then, compared with today’s daily grind, mistakes big and small inevitably sneaked through weary eyes of reporters, the deft editorial knife as well as the proofreader’s scrutiny.

From “no errors”, the standards loosened to allow for “minimal errors” when we went twice a week. The frequency became a concern for our deputy editor then, who took an earnest effort to stick a slogan on the newsroom wall, which read: “Get the news first, but first get it right.”

Today daily deadline pressures and our proofreader often being lobbed with several stories at a time, mistakes have skyrocketed. The slogan was ripped off and breaking stories and meeting deadlines took prominence.

Colleagues pursuing further studies abroad frequently sent mail, cautioning of the recurring mistakes that appeared on the paper, as did our faithful readers.

Over time, we wondered who it was, that grew immune to Kuensel’s growing number of errors. Us from the repeated complaints we received or our readers for running into ceaseless numbers of errors in every issue.

Here is a slice of bloopers gleaned from some 1,800 stories Kuensel published since it went six days a week in April last year.

Many a times Kuensel took upon itself the responsibility to promote, demote or transfer officials. The police chief called to say that barely two years after being promoted to the rank of a brigadier Kuensel had demoted him to Colonel. So much for an organisation whose name loosely translates to clarity or make clear.

In a recent issue, economics affairs secretary, Dasho Sonam Tshering, was promoted to a minister and the works and human settlement minister, Lyonpo Yeshey Zimba, was transferred as minister of the information and communication ministry.

A Gelephu municipality official wore a tone of frustration and disillusionment when he called the reporter to inform about the typographical error where, instead of writing that the newly installed water system would pump four mn (million) litre of water from its 600 cubic metre tank, appeared as four milliliters of water a day.

The caption of a forest officer holding up three dead fishes washed ashore the riverbanks, after the country received its record rainfall in May last year, said people were catching them for the frying pan. But the Dzongkha edition, however, said the forest officer was releasing the fishes that people caught back into the river.

Bhutan would be building a 100-kilometre bridge instead of a 100-metre one, according to one of our Dzongkha editions.

While misspellings, incorrect names and facts are intolerable in any newspaper for they are a mark of sloppiness, which is rarely excusable, most people, who have called us have been humble to correct us, while some guffawed at our errors.

This only means that in the year of the Tiger, Kuensel must continue to try and master the basics, even if thinking big costs nothing.