Bangladesh Television embarrasses the government with its black out
Bangladesh Television embarrasses the government with its black out
The
Bangladesh government has reprimanded officials of the tate-owned Bangladesh
Television (BTV) and punished others for lapses in reporting a violent bomb
explosion last month. A bomb blast which causes 22 deaths and injured a 100 was
ignored during the prime time evening news bulletin.
On
June 16 a bomb blast occurred at 9:00 pm, believed to have been trigged by a
time-bomb. It wrecked the office of the ruling Awami League at Narayanganj,
near capital Dhaka. The blast left 22 dead and among the scores who sustained
grievous injuries was the member of parliament, Shamim Osman.
After
receiving the news from different sources, thousands all over the country
switched on BTV for visual news of one of the worst bomb explosions. Alas, BTV
failed to broadcast anything at all. Within an hour the only private channel
Ekushey Television (ETV) came with the "breaking news" and soon aired
footage of the havoc and agony caused from the incident. The 300,000
subscribers of Grameen Phone mobile began receiving a news flash on the blast.
In
the recent spate of bomb blasts from March 1999 until recently, 63 people have
become victims of soft targets in at least six incidents in the capital and the
countryside. The previous blasts still remain mysterious and little progress
has been made in investigations. The bombs caused casualty to Islamic sects,
the Christian community, communists, cultural audience and now political
activists.
BTV
possibly had time to broadcast the latest massacre. Both the private and
state-owned news agencies have sent the news right after 10 pm. The BTV
correspondent in Naryanganj phoned the newsroom soon after the English news
broadcast began at 10:30 confirming the wire news. As is their wont, the
newsroom simply sat on the news till they got a green signal from their
political bosses. When the signal arrived they broadcast the news at 11:30 pm.
On
the following day the Information Ministry issued a show cause notice to Farooq
Alamgir, Additional Director General (News) to explain why the news and visuals
of the carnage of the ruling party was not broadcast, despite advice from the
State Minister for Information & Broadcasting. The Narayanganj
correspondent of BTV was sacked and one other was barred from newscasting. Both
were held responsible for "negligence of duties". The newsreader has
been blamed for faltering during news broadcast of the blast, and for the fact
that the broadcast itself was full of wrong pronunciations!
Several
dailies expressed their frustration and criticised BTV. One newspaper
"Dainik Jugantor" said "Shame on BTV". It asked whether
death and mayhem are news or whether they constitute sensationalism? It also
mentioned that during the prime-time several items regarding the Prime
Minister`s itinerary were shown. Were those news more important than the
carnage, it asked.
This has caused a serious embarrassment to BTV and the government too. Particularly against the background of half-hearted attempts to defranchise state-run television and hand it over to an autonomous authority. The Cabinet meeting last week instead of giving a seal of approval to these moves, asked the Ministry of Law to develop a bill for giving "limited" autonomy to the state-run radio Bangladesh Betar, and to BTV. The two electronic media will come under two separate institutions. A committee headed by bureaucrats and media practitioners has developed a code of conduct for news broadcasts. This "electronic news broadcast policy" will need formal approval of the government.