The Amnesty International report saying that media freedom in Bangladesh is under threat comes a day before the law minister of Bangladesh said that Clause 57 of the ICT is going to go and a new law relating to digital media is coming.
The AI report is mostly rehashing of old facts without much context and analysis.
The law minister’s statement, however, has significance as it points to the next critical space of the media freedom war.
One is not sure what the AI is trying to achieve but the minister’s words are specific and concrete.
An Amnesty report on Bangladesh media written from London is not particularly relevant in today’s world.
This sort of establishment liberalism, and without context or diagnosis, has limited value in this age of the fading Western sun.
The report focuses mainly on three main clusters: The bloggers, the editors, and a few journos thrown in.
Lumping all together, the AI report draws a picture of fail score.
But the report’s shortcoming is obvious. It doesn’t distinguish between politicians or those with such intent disguised as journalists and professional media workers.
Mahfuz Anam, Shafik Rehman, Mahmudur Rahman, etc all held media identities while involved in extra-media work.
Bloggers were activists not media workers. So the highlighted part of the report is trifle dodgy.
But it’s this “look how bad it is” approach that is good only for a day’s news.
It may make AI and its followers in Bangladesh feel good for a few days but not much more.
The struggle for media freedom and conflict within and outside media is beyond the capacity of distant critics to understand. That is why this report is structurally incompetent.
Media owners and media workers
The perception of the term media is complex as it’s made up of several parts, from owners to workers to consumers.
The conflict over freedom in media is between media owners and editors–management and media workers.
The rights of workers are violated by the owning class as much as by the government who are its ally and make useful owner-friendly decisions.
Owners and censors come from the same group and so conflicts are multi-layered.
The trade unions in media are part of political parties and so the conflicts within media are multiple.
The struggle for media freedom and conflict within and outside media is beyond the capacity of distant critics to understand
Law Minister Anis understands this relationship well and hence his promise to review and do away with Article 57 of the ICT Act.
He is aware that Section 57 has become a very unpopular cause and beyond salvaging.
It needs to be junked and a new one installed -- digital media law, which will handle the ruling class’ anxieties better in relation to an ever expanding digital media.
But much of the focus is on conventional professional media which is facing serious threat from pro and semi-pro online media and citizens’ media.
It is here that media freedom issues are being played out.
Emergence of online media has challenged established media more than even censorship. Unlike the previous model of “wealth = media” -- we have will = media now due to online technology.
It’s here that the nemesis of the establishment lives, both formal and informal, government and the investor.
Social media as competitor
Meanwhile, social media has become the cutting edge of journalism today and the consumer and the producers are converging into one hyphenated identity.
It’s true that major houses will decline in influence in future but so will dependence on connection capitalism to produce transparency as media start-up costs are so low.
The competitor is not just another outlet but the consumer itself.
In this age of transition, media workers should set their own standards of freedom, dumping the dead ones.
They must write their own Freedom Report free from external judgment and interests.
But they must also deal with the rise of the owning class and its online media which produces cross-business conflicts as the recent Razu versus Walton case shows.
The ruling and owning class are one but the mood for negotiation exists as the law minister’s words say. Media workers should respond appropriately if they value their freedom in conventional, online, or citizen media.
Or they may face redundancy like Amnesty does today.
Afsan Chowdhury is a journalist and researcher.