Significant levels of political bias in the reporting of news by the
state-owned Bangladesh Television have been identified in the ongoing
monitoring of the channel by the international NGO Democracy
International.
The NGO, whose Democratic Participation and Reform programme is funded
by the American and British aid bodies USAID and UKAID, has captured and
analysed all news broadcast on BTV and five private channels since the
beginning of September and placed the results on a web site-based
database that was this week made publicly available.
The interrogation of the database by New Age found that the NGO had
judged an overwhelming majority of statements made on BTV news bulletins
in the three months between September 1 and November 30 concerning
Khaleda Zia, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and the caretaker
government to be negative or very negative.
In contrast, the vast majority of similar statements made about Sheikh
Hasina and the Awami League were considered positive or very positive.
Similar but less significant levels of apparent political bias were
found by the NGO in its analysis of the news programmes of five private
television channels, with many more negative statements in the news
being made about the BNP and Khaleda than those about the AL and Hasina.
On the issue of the caretaker government, however, the statements made
in the news broadcast by the five private stations were all much more
positive than negative.
The five private TV channels chosen by the NGO to monitor — ATN Bangla,
Channel I, Somoy TV, NTV and Ekattor — are those which the organisation
found to have the ‘highest audience interest and penetration’ based on
its own opinion polls.
The NGO, which uses internationally recognised systems of media
monitoring, employs about six people to monitor the news of these
channels and to identify ‘mentions’ of certain key words.
When the key word is used as part of a ‘statement’ — rather than simply
mentioned in passing — the statement is then assessed to be either a
‘very positive,’ a ‘positive,’ a ‘neutral,’ a ‘negative’ or a ‘very
negative’ statement towards that person, organisation or issue.
The research found that BTV, the only terrestrial channel which covers
95 per cent of the country, mentioned Hasina twice as many times as
Khaleda in its news reports — 241 mentions of the prime minister to 109
mentions of the leader of the opposition in the parliament.
Out of the 67 mentions of the BNP leader which Democracy International
defined as a ‘statement,’ the NGO found that not a single one was
‘positive’ — with 27 being ‘very negative,’ 26 ‘negative’ and 14 being
‘neutral.’
Out of 25 ‘statements’ that BTV made about the AL leader and prime
minister, not one was, however, considered to be ‘negative.’ Ten were
‘very positive,’ 12 were ‘positive’ and 3 were ‘neutral.’ None were
negative.
The monitoring project found a similar situation in the way BTV dealt with the two main political parties.
Out of the 122 times that a ‘statement’ about the BNP was made in BTV
news, 15 were found by the NGO to be ‘very negative,’ 85 were ‘negative’
and 22 were ‘neutral.’
In relation to the 42 ‘statements’ made about the Awami League, 10 were,
however, ‘very positive’, 29 were ‘positive,’ with only 2 being
‘negative’. None of the comments were ‘very negative.’ 1 was considered
to be ‘neutral’
BTV mentioned the caretaker government 22 times, 10 of which were
identified as ‘statements’ out of which 9 were ‘negative’ and 1 was
‘very negative.’
M. Hamid, BTV’s director general, was forwarded the research results and
said, ‘Until I have seen the full parameters of the research, I do not
think it appropriate to comment.’
Three months of monitoring by Democracy International has also found
some apparent bias in the way the five private channels covered the two
parties and their leaders.
All the channels were found to broadcast more negative than positive
statements about both leaders and their parties but broadcast far more
negative statements about Khaleda and the BNP than about Hasina and the
Awami League.
According to the Democracy International database, whilst ATN Bangla,
broadcast three times as many ‘negative’/ ‘very negative’ than
‘positive’/ ‘very positive’ statements about Hasina (32 to 10), the
channel made eight times as many negative than positive comments about
Khaleda (52 to 6).
NTV broadcast 55 negative and 16 positive statements about the prime
minister but 43 negative and only 3 positive comments about the leader
of the opposition in the parliament.
Out of the four private channels, Channel I and Ekattor news coverage
had the most disproportionately negative coverage of Khaleda.
The NGO’s analysis suggests that Channel I broadcast 57 negative
comments about the opposition leader to 3 positive (a ratio of 20 to 1),
and Ekattor broadcast 45 negative comments to 3 positive (a ratio of 15
to 1).
Whilst both channels also made more negative than positive statements about Hasina, the ratio between the two was much smaller.
Channel I broadcast 24 negative to 16 positive comments about the prime
minister (a ratio of 1.5 to 1) and Ekattor broadcast 39 negative to 15
positive statements (a ratio of 2.5 to 1). Somoy TV broadcast nearly
equally balanced comments about Hasina (20 negative to 16 positive) but
in relation to Khaleda, it broadcast 48 negative statement to 7
positive.
A similar situation exists in relation to comments about the Awami League and the BNP.
Whilst the channels broadcast more negative than positive statements
about both of the parties, all of them were far more negative towards
the BNP.
In comments made about the leader of the BNP, ATN Bangla broadcast 94
negative and 9 positive statements; NTV broadcast 79 negative and 7
positive; Channel I broadcast 96 negative to 4 positive, Somoy broadcast
88 negative to 6 positive and Ekattor broadcast 67 negative to 3
positive statements.
The survey, however, found that unlike BTV, the five private channels
were much more positive than negative in their comments about the
caretaker government Out of 60 statements which ATN Bangla made about
this form of government, 53 were ‘positive’ or ‘very positive’ and only 4
were ‘negative’ or ‘very negative.’
Ekattor made 41 ‘positive’ or ‘very positive’ comments about the caretaker government and only 6 which were negative.
The database can be found at www.di-bangladesh.com/mediamonitoring.
(source)