The Bangladeshi news media has come a long way since the independence of the country. We have a number of news outlets, a large audience, a quite big ad market, an easy media licensing system, a wide range of journalism schools at universities and training institutes, and there are new investments coming in as well. The media has been declared an industry as well, which includes news outlets.
However, if someone asks what the problems of Bangladeshi Media at present are, the answers will include mushroom growth; weak professionalism, accountability, and governance systems; lack of gender balance in and through media, low utilization of capacitated workforce; declining trust from the audience; lack of business innovation; long-term development support; and a lot more. While these are all internal weaknesses, some of the external factors dragging the news media behind are politicization, ownership pattern, external influence and pressure, and unsustainable business models.
And from the last few years, another challenge has been emerging -- the rise of social media as an alternative news source. Even when fake news and misinformation is widely spread through social media, people -- especially the younger generations -- are relying more and more on it as mainstream media seems to be not working as freely as they are supposed to be in a democratic framework.
A glaring instance of this was the student’s movement against road accidents a couple of years back. There was a lack of details of that movement in the mainstream media. To fill the vacuum, social media rushed in quickly and wild rumours about the movement were spread. The silence of the mainstream media basically paves the way to such kind of fake news. Without going into the debate whether it was because of the self-censorship approach or the fear of restrictive media-related laws, it is high time that news media does some self reflecting.
There is no way to deny the fact that people’s trust in mainstream media is declining, recent research and studies including one done by MRDI in 2021 supports the fact. Now, this is not a unique situation for Bangladesh, this is a kind of global phenomena. With the advent of social media and related online platforms, mainstream media started to struggle everywhere, and with the fallout during the pandemic, the situation worsened. Hence, the idea of ”sustainable journalism” is being talked about.
Derived from the phrase “sustainable development,” the idea is still a developing one. According to Lars Tallert, a Swedish media researcher and one of the pioneers to advocate sustainable journalism, the concept addresses two distinct crises: One is the sustainability crisis of society related to climate change, democracy, poverty, inequality, and armed conflicts. On the other hand, there is the sustainability crisis of journalism related to decrease in revenues, the hold of the media, disinformation, clickbait journalism, and deteriorating trust in the media.
In our context, the second one is more pressing at the moment.
But what is the solution? Under an advanced international training program in media regulation in a democratic framework, a team of six -- including journalists, academics, and development personnel -- tried to explore the concept of sustainable journalism in the context of the Bangladeshi media landscape. And their suggestions are very simple; for Bangladesh, sustainable journalism is actually the practice of quality, ethical, and objective journalism, which can be only ensured through a strong system of self-regulation. Back to the question of people’s trust in the media, this is an issue which is directly affecting revenue. Though there are several factors that are affecting the people’s trust in media -- what the media itself can do something about is the practice of objective journalism. The practice of quality journalism for increasing public trust in the media leads to its business viability.
Through their research, the team found that Bangladeshi media leaders and professionals are also worried about the declining trust in the media. However, they tend to put the blame mostly on external factors, ignoring the media's own challenges in maintaining effective internal governance standards.
Given that, there is also a strong urge from media leaders and practitioners to develop a functional media code of conduct and improve self-regulations. This can be a starting point, a strategy to survive. Self-regulation can be also an effective tool to avoid the self-censorship we are observing in the media.
Indeed, we already have a code of conduct, prescribed by the press council. But that code of conduct is decades-old and now almost everyone has forgotten about it. A collaborative approach involving all relevant stakeholders is needed to make a functional, unified code of conduct for journalists, which would enable individual news outlets to develop their own self-regulation mechanisms. It can be in the format of an internal governance system, ethical guidelines for journalists, separate gender policy, etc.
For example, if a news outlet wants to reach the women audience (which is half of the total audience according to the population), they need to provide content that will serve their interest. But if the news outlet cannot ensure gender balance in the newsroom, it will be almost impossible. Having a gender policy can ensure required representation and sensitivity among all the staff, which will ultimately help achieve the goal.
All it takes is to be inclusive and practice diversity in the newsroom.
Another important aspect of sustainable journalism is finding business viability. Digital transformation can be a new opportunity to make the mainstream media financially viable. Though several news outlets are trying to adapt to this, except maybe three or four leading organizations, very few have been successful.
To develop professionalism and new media skills is what we need right now.
Nadia Sarwat works in the field of media development.
