Sat 26 Jan 2008
During my visit to Bangladesh, I sent this update about media to my colleagues
Amid the stale format of talks shows and old hogs, there are some spectacular young jounalists who are changing the way tv reporting talkshows are done. This is the most refreshing change and indeed gives me a lot of hope about the media. TV journalists like Kazi Jesin and their no holds barred approach is definitely something to keep an eye out for. Among the e channels, Ekushey TV is leading the pack in this. Ekushey TV seems to have targetted the youth as an audience and the reporting style , the get ups and the people who do the shows all are reflected in it. Also it has been helped by the shutdown of CSB channel, it seems as this is also focusing a news show driven approach in its programming.
Ekushey has restarted with a fresh and enthusiastic bunch and other channels which are name heavy are starting to look stale. The flagship program in Ekushey is of course their live news show at 9.30 pm where they directly take questions from the public as well and bring in young journalists to grill the participants. This program has accountability written all over it.
I was referring to the program Ekushey Shomoy and Ekushey Raat - the two flagship programs of ETV. Irene Khan just did one live tv show where she took questions from the public in Bangladesh during her trip and that was with Ekushey Shomoy and it was a spectacular show with some very tough questions for her. I saw the recording from the studio. The set up was really interesting considering it was a Bangladeshi show. A crew of online editors carefully monitor the show and any time an issue comes up that needs follow up or further challenge, they call in via phone or via sattelite link up another expert who directly challenges the participant. In very little time, it was slowly becoming the must see tv for all for the sheer courage of the topics and its ability to push the boundaries. Yours truly also took part in a live Ekushey Raat.
Today, however, AFP is carrying the news that these two programs have now been banned.
DHAKA (AFP) — Bangladesh’s army-backed emergency government has banned two popular live political talk shows, the private satellite television channel ETV said.
“The information ministry handed us a written order saying that we cannot telecast out our live talk shows any more,” a senior ETV official told AFP.
The two prime time shows, off the air since Thursday, hosted political and civil society leaders and took questions from viewers and journalists on political, economic, social and cultural issues.
The once termed government of the people is now truly following Musharraf’s advice and ignoring the rights of the common people. From the things that advisers would say, the government already seemed out of touch. Now such ban in media where people could express their thoughts will hasten the process of the government’s complete disconnect from the public. In stead of opening up more space for civilized form of expressing dissent, the government is shutting them down one by one. How will the public express their views in a decent way and actually get noticed if all these mediums are being shut down?
Ashraf Kaiser of Ekushey Shomoy - New Age Faces for future
If you are in facebook, you can find the group ekushey shomoy and you can see some video of the program.
Also read CSB news shut down.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
I think, Asif bhai, that the senior members of this government have reached the stage where no amount of constructive criticism can really do them any good. And they recognize it themselves, and have chosen the short-term gain of at least surpressing some dissent. They are, as much as us, prisoners of the course, the railtrack, if you will, on which they have set our country. We are inexorably careening towards the end.
January 27th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Dear Friends,Please note that Ekushey Shomoy and Ekushey Raat is not Ekushey TV’s own program. Samia Zaman and Mozammel Babu has their own production house called VERSA MEDIA. They produce the program and sold it to Ekushey. So try to understand that those two program is not a production of the journalists team of Ekushey, rather those are money making program of Samia and Babu. Anyway we are really sorry for their bad luck.
January 27th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
The smile would warm the cockles of your heart. Especially if you
were a CIA agent. This was exactly what was wanted. Happy obedient
leaders. Democracy simply got in the way. Karzai, Musharraf,
Fakhruddin. The new alliance. One new poodle.
It was summer 2006. The Talibans were getting ever closer to Kabul.
Sitting in the Aina office in Choroi Malek Asghar, I was listening to
Reza, founder of the Afghan media organisation. The recent anti-drug
campaign was bound to have failed, he claimed. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the
president’s younger brother was the chief beneficiary of the drug
trade. The US $ 500 million or so spent on combating drugs, was more
likely to have been spent on the now famous ‘corrupto mansions’ than
on alternative livelihood for opium farmers.
I had felt at ease walking the streets of Kabul. My Arafat scarf and
beard also helped. It was different for the ’saviours’ of
Afghanistan. They stepped from their secure offices into their secure
vehicles and went to their secure homes. The saviours spend a lot of
time in secure cars. The Lexus car that took me to the Serena hotel
had five television sets. My Afghan friends call Karzai “The Mayor of
Central Kabul”.
A month later I was across the border, in the earthquake zone in
Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir. I spotted flags with Iqbal, Jinnah and
Mickey Mouse flying above one of the refugee camps. The significance
of the cartoon character had escaped me. Chatting with my friend
Zaheer back in Karachi, I brought up the subject. “Mushy Mouse” was
his smiling reply.
Mushy had come into power through a military coup, ousting an elected
prime minister. He had suspended the constitution twice and arrested
the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. On 3rd November
2007, days before a bench of the Supreme Court was to decide on a
petition challenging the constitutional validity of his re-election
as president, he had shut down all private television channels. He
had also failed to protect the life of his chief political opponent,
Benazir. The real Mickey might have run the country better.
There seemed to be no malice or sense of competition between the
three US stooges in Davos. Emerging out of the darkness, hands held
together in their solidarity of servitude, they positively glowed.
Mushy was candid and genuine when he advised his peer Fakhruddin, the
Chief Adviser of Bangladesh. “I think you are doing a great job.
Carry on doing it no matter what anyone thinks, irrespective of human
rights.”
This comedy of errors is a tragedy in the making and our adviser is
being true to his script. Mushy would have been proud of Fakhruddin’s
human rights record. The ban on media coverage of indIegenous rights
groups. The more recent ban on the outspoken journalist Nurul Kabir
from TV talk shows and the written ban on the popular live programmes
on Ekushey TV, neatly slot in with the suppression of free media that
both Mushy and Karzai have practiced. Like most other bans Kabir’s
had no paper trails. No written instructions to deny. Just the phone
calls from Uttor Para (the cantonment) that we have come to
recognise. Our Chief Adviser might even be trying to get ahead of his
senior poodles by teaming up with the Myanmar generals.
But Mushy Mouse and the mayor of central Kabul have already staged
their sham elections. Our adviser’s play is yet to be played out.
http://shahidul.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/
January 28th, 2008 at 9:48 am
I considered the two Ekushey programmes to be extremely biased propaganda.
The two programme mainly featured hosts whose only job is to criticize everything and anything the CTG does - to a hysterical level.
When discussing issues in a live talk show, it is a norm for these sort of progammes to have a panel with supporting and opposing views. But this is not usually the case with either Ekushey Shomoy and Ekushey Raat.
During the programmes the hosts themseleves instead of moderating position themselves as critics.
There are other talk shows on TV which are still broadcasting and are not afraid to discuss and shortcomings of the government but Ekushey Shomoy and Ekushey Raat appeared to have been setup to only criticize the government.
This is only my personal view.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:05 am
As far as I heard, these two shows had the highest TRP ratings in its timeslot (i may be wrong). If these were just propaganda as you say, I doubt it would be this popular. Also, weekly 2000 called Ekushey Shomoy the best talk show of the year in 2007. The shows I saw also had only 1 moderator and three journalists. Also, if you are familiar with any other democratic practices, you would know that media’s job is to constantly question the establishment rather than promoting them. They work as the organ in democracy as a check to the vast amount of power that the government enjoys. In that light, even if i take into your criticism, I don’t see much wrong to it.
But the most important question is how can you
justify the banning just because you don’t like their view point?
January 28th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Why ban even if you don’t like the programme ? How about flicking your remote to go to the next channel instead ? How about choice and the freedom to choose ?
Farhad
January 28th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Asif/Farhad,
I have no doubt Ekushey Shomoy(E.S) and Ekushey Raat(E.R) were very high rated programmes, I myself watched the shows most nights - I have based my opinion after watching many episodes of these talk shows.
I myself am for free speech and constructive criticism but those in the media who sponsor and host these programmes also have a responsibilty to moderate these programmes in a neutral way and with representation from both sides of the debate - which in my opinion was not happening in the two banned programmes.
Many countries have limits on free speech regarding certain topics. British historian David Irving, a holocaust deniar was jailed by Austria for his views. In the UK Samina Malik, also known as the lyrical terrorist was found guilty of terrorism charges for her poems.
We Bangladeshis for example will be apallled if a Jamaat owned TV station starts broadcasting talk shows denying war crimes committed during the liberation war.
In the United States the porn industry operates under the first amendment, which gurantees freedom of speech but in Bangladesh something like this would be unthinkable.
The point I am making is that freedom of speech is not a blank cheque for corrupt media moguls to undermine their opponents - in this case the army/ctg. It is a fact that most Bangladeshi newspapers and TV stations are owned by people associated withe either BNP and AL. Shady characters like Falu, Mirza Abbas, Mannan Bhuiah, Sadeq Hossain Khoka, Mainul Hossain, Nurul Islam Babul control the Bangladeshi electronic and print media. It will be very foolish on our part to trust such news outlets to give us the real news.
Programmes like E.S and E.R have been consistently violating journalistic ethics by only representing one side of the debate. Hosts like Tania Amir, instead of moderating their shows, demonstrate extreme bias againts the current army backed government.
I am not at all surprised that the two talk shows were banned because it seemed like the only agenda these shows had was to undermine the army backed CTG.
January 29th, 2008 at 5:34 am
#7
- What is wrong about being politically biased? Why they have to be politically neutral?
- Why you are comparing E.S. and E.R. with Nazi patrons? Be just in your comparison.
- This is funny that government is talking about end of political dynasties, “real” democracy, reform in political parties (only god knows what they mean by that) and simultaneously do not hesitate to impose ban on slight criticism.
February 15th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Ekushey Shomoy is back on air.