Khawaza Main Uddin

A journalist is criticised and applauded simultaneously for the same report, when there are two opposing parties at the receiving ends. How would a social criminal and a corrupt official appreciate the reporting if their activities are exposed?

That kind of journalism is nothing personal. The reporter’s views have to be absent in the media reports: s/he can neither glorify nor defend the very self until or unless the report is challenged.

The recent ‘uproar’ in the television, newspapers and social media platforms following The Daily Star editor’s admission of an error in his editorial judgement about publication of some reports years ago demonstrated debates that were hardly professional. The contents of the reports, not to mention the powerful sources, were in no way questioned, other than targeting the person, Mahfuz Anam.

|Of course, an individual, be it in the media or elsewhere, may be subject to criticism, for personal offences, if any, but that ideally should not be equated as the fault of the profession.

The point of contention today is also not whether a journalist should be given immunity from criminal and civil jurisdictions. Nobody ever demanded it. A true journalist has no scope of seeking impunity from any watchdog.

Media people are offered many things you may call bribes or favours, apparently to publish and not to publish reports. The vested quarters that make such offers find nothing wrong in doing so. To add to their professional hazards, journalists are threatened in many cases.

The individual journalist is attacked. In turn what is being affected most is the freedom of the media that creates the atmosphere for professional pursuits. There is no record that the media flourished in times of fascism.

The sedition and defamation suits filed against Mahfuz Anam damaged the possibility of a healthy debate on how the Bangladesh media professionals should act in the near future.

Any observer can well understand how much the party cadres who have filed those cases know about contempt, sedition, journalistic ethics and even the contents of the reports in contention.

They filed the cases mainly in two considerations: investment in the culture of sycophancy may give them lucrative political dividends and aathis is the opportune moment to punish or at least harass the editor of a newspaper which, they feel, is not under their absolute control.

Is this not giving message: “Hey, look around; we’re here to hear what you say”? Is it not tantamount to bullying of all who believe in and try to assert independence of the media?

Such a state has been possible partly because of relative silence, and also enthusiasm of a significant portion of the Bangladesh media about muzzling of the press, which is pro-people. If and when the media professionals fail to reflect on the public pulse, the people, too, have the option to withdraw, silently.

The ones in the Bangladesh media, who think journalists should kowtow to the powerful, should join the race of holding public offices at any cost and by any means. Their friends in the establishment perhaps smile, seeing their longing. It is thus easy to play with such a ‘domestic media’.

With the boom of technology and mushrooming of the social media entities, the freedom of conscience should have been wider, but it has deteriorated instead.

The invisible hands of the establishments have been stronger in putting all others under their surveillance. As if the colonial bondage is revived by local elements of hegemonic forces. We see no reason to deny all the messages being delivered by the media are not what it is supposed to disseminate.

Now, time tells us to go back to textbook discussion on who is actually a journalist. Journalists are pitifully being compelled to argue why the freedom s/he needs to enjoy is not her/his personal property.

A journalist, as I see, is none but the representative of the populace. I may be a self-proclaimed journalist if I cannot earn the trust of the society. As the media is meant for upholding public interests and rights, particularly by making the unheard voices heard, it becomes irrelevant without a functional democracy.

In our country, the issue of the free media has been a product of and prerequisite for the struggle for independence and democracy. The current treatment of the media exposes the state of democracy and tolerance among the powerful quarters.

The establishment and those who benefit from it may fear a brave media can keep the people informed about all their activities and divulge anytime the misdeeds whatsoever. So, it is understandable why some of them are nervously attacking the media. That is where the relevance of the free media lies.