The way our newspapers are

Syed Badrul AhsanSyed Badrul Ahsan
Published : 7 Feb 2016, 03:49 PM
Updated : 7 Feb 2016, 03:49 PM

It is time for journalists in this country to go into a bit of introspection. To what extent professionalism is being upheld is an important question. Again, the degree to which neutrality as well as partisanship has caused scratches on the working of the media cannot be ignored. Add to that the need for newspapers to uphold national history against the predatory instincts of rightwing politicians and their acolytes toward undermining such history. Must newspapers be neutral in this battle waged by the proponents of history against the elements representing anti-history? Where does neutrality end and objectivity begin?

In the 1980s, a newspaper house, divided in itself along family lines, was trapped between supporting the Ershad regime (because one of the family members was part of the government) and carrying on a struggle for a restoration for democracy (because another member was vociferous in his opposition to the regime). In the early 2000s, a new newspaper decided that it would not address Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as Bangabandhu and General Ziaur Rahman as Shaheed Zia. That was touted as principled policy on its part. While one can understand the 'shaheed' bit in light of Islamic traditions, the point about calling Mujib as late President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman rather than the universally accepted honorific of Bangabandhu has been inexplicable. Must the media, any part of it, be expected to do that? Or is prejudice clouding judgment here?

In the period of the last caretaker government, the editor of a prominent Bengali language newspaper publicly urged a departure of Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia from politics as part of the notorious 'minus-two' plan. The editor of another newspaper, in the run-up to the election of January 2014, ignored the Constitution by putting forth the argument through his repeated front-page commentaries that the voting be postponed in order for a wider participation in the voting to be ensured. In the chaos unleashed by the Hefazat-e-Islam, the non-journalist editor of yet another newspaper was little concerned that his incendiary write-ups targeting individuals whose thoughts he did not share were below-the-belt affairs that newspapers are not expected to indulge in.

All of these facts — and factors — in association with others call for a good, healthy conversation on what Bangladesh's newspaper industry needs to do about the way it performs. The way newspapers work, the reforms they require, the professionalism they must be based on — these are the issues which need addressing.

A good number of years ago, an Indian journalist, a good friend of mine, wondered why media people in Bangladesh changed their workplaces frequently. For his part, he had been with the newspaper he had joined in youth and had been there, at the time of our conversation, for as long as twenty five years. My response to him was brief: newspaper management in Bangladesh had not yet attuned itself to the idea that journalists needed to be paid well, indeed to be given incentives to do a good job in the interest of the newspapers they worked for. That was — and still is — a crucial reason why journalists moved from one newspaper to another. Thoughts of economic security were the driving force in all the flitting about.

That conversation was more than a decade and a half ago. All these years later, it remains my feeling that the newspaper industry in Bangladesh is yet to come up to the standards which define journalism around the world. Look closely, at any newspaper organization in the country. Chances are you will be baffled anew at the largely ancient methods along which it works or is made to work. Journalists are yet underpaid, with newcomers suffering the most owing to the pittance they receive as salaries. The management in much of the newspaper industry is yet averse to thoughts of an implementation of wage board awards, for reasons that one understands or suspects only too well. And they have to do with the fact that any journalist who qualifies for or comes by the facilities enshrined in a wage board award will be privy to rights his employers cannot easily dismiss out of hand.

Parochialism is pervasive in a large number of our newspaper houses and not just in the matter of the wage board. An instance of it is the absence of a second tier of leadership at newspapers, which runs rather contrary to the loud demands by such newspapers for democracy and transparency in the larger political context of the country. There are of course journalists in senior positions, but the degree of authority they enjoy in such positions is debatable. That has to do with the fact that most newspapers have over the years turned into pretty entrenched affairs, into petty little fiefdoms with editors calling the shots and trying to stamp their often flawed individual authority on the newspapers. The patent reality is that collegiality is conspicuous by its absence in our newspaper industry. The trend has been one of editors arrogating to themselves, with the encouragement and support of mediocre colleagues willing to be beholden to them, the power to make and impose decisions on those around them.

In these past three decades, the absence of scholar-editors in Bangladesh's newspaper industry has been debilitating for journalism. And a reason why editors of the kind who dominated the industry through the 1950s and 1960s and even the 1970s have not emerged has considerably to do with the absence of a democratic atmosphere at the various newspaper organizations in the country. Add to that the shadow of newspaper ownership, with many owners taking upon themselves the additional responsibility of being editors and thereby pushing their newspapers to irrelevance. There are, again, editors who are happy to run one-man shows, with nary a thought to the future. Thoughts of succession, unlike those which are a rule with newspapers in the West, have never been given the attention they deserve. Indeed, in those infrequent moments when promising journalists are beginning to be looked upon as future editors in succession to the incumbents, circumstances arise or are created when such 'pretenders to the throne' are either compelled to leave or walk out of their own volition. In the process, the newspapers end up paying a price.

The absence of a tradition of succession, or grooming for succession, in Bangladesh's newspaper industry must be studied in parallel with the eternity in which a number of editors have seemed to hang on to the top job. Good, well-informed working journalists have come and gone and some have even succumbed to the laws of mortality, but their editors have remained, in ways similar to the manner in which politicians in certain African nations have clung to power for long decades. Ideally, an editor can on his own infuse dynamism in his organization by choosing not to stay in his job beyond a maximum of ten years. Every organization, newspaper or any other body, is in constant need of new themes brought on by an infusion of fresh blood. That, unfortunately, is not how newspapers have been working in this country. Rare, if at all, is the editor who has voluntarily made way for a successor. And rare too is the instance where the owning companies of newspapers have stepped in to ensure a transition from a long-serving editor to a new, incoming one. In both cases, stagnation has been the consequence.

A critical problem with our newspapers has been the failure to promote a system that allows journalists to accumulate experience and rise to the top by working their way through the various departments of the newspaper. A reporter does not go beyond being a reporter. An editorial writer remains in his safe sedentary position even if he is intellectually equipped for a wider, more influential role within the organization. A sub-editor edits and corrects news items all his professional life. Journalists recruited for the weekend magazines or the arts and women's sections of newspapers pass from youth to middle age, sometimes to old age, within the increasingly suffocating cubicles of their departments. In time, atrophy of the imagination sets in. Women are there at newspapers, yes, but an overwhelming number of them are yet to occupy seats around the table where decisions are made.

And let us not discard that other ailment which some newspapers have lately been afflicted with. The unabashed manner in which they have such institutions as banks and multinationals sponsor a number of their programmes compromises their freedom, indeed puts them into a straitjacket they cannot easily come out of. When revenue is the overarching goal, when advertisements are the stated priority, it is bold, substantive and intellectual journalism which goes missing.

The imperatives cannot be ignored. Our newspapers need to change, need to transform themselves into transparent organisations and away from the entrenched affairs they have largely been so far. Old-fashioned feudalism must make way for a post-modern reinvention of journalism. Newspapers do not shine in the shadow of opaque and effete leadership. The windows, therefore, need to be opened for fresh, invigorating air to be let in.