Media self-censoring amid mob violence, intimidation, says Kamal Ahmed

Since the Awami League government was overthrown on Aug 5, 2024, media outlets are facing less interference from the government, politicians, and security agencies, says Kamal Ahmed, the veteran journalist appointed as chief of the Media Reform Commission.

But, he says, there also is concern among the media regarding mob violence and intimidation that is convincing many outlets to self-censor.

In addition, the owners of media outlets have also replaced newsroom personnel in an attempt to recruit people who can lobby for them among those whose political fortunes are on the rise.

Kamal spoke with bdnews24.com’s Inside Out on press freedom, the urgency of financial independence for the fourth estate, and the need for transparency, accountability, and accuracy in a turbulent media landscape.

In his conversation, he described the current period as one of “positive beginnings” for the media, stressing that the change in government had brought “noticeable improvements” in editorial freedom.

He also noted that, for the first time in years, no journalist deaths had been reported since January 2025, a fact mentioned in the latest World Press Freedom Report.

Kamal, who has worked independently with both domestic and international media outlets, was careful not to overstate the progress.

He said: “I’m not saying achievements. These are beginnings. And it has to go a long way.”

But amid these improvements lies a deeper concern.

Kamal warned of what he called “a sort of environment, nervousness of mob violence, intimidation,” particularly emanating from social media platforms.

He specifically pointed to self-styled activists and influencers who claim to represent the spirit of the July Uprising. “Their intimidation is something everyone should take note of,” the journalist said.

Kamal cautioned that the intimidation did not stem from the original participants of the student movement, but rather from “opportunistic groups and individuals” exploiting its name to assert influence over public discourse.

According to him, the threat of backlash from such actors—particularly on social media—has led many newsrooms to withhold or dilute coverage on sensitive topics.

“This intimidation is causing actually self-censorship. Lots of newsrooms are nervous to tell the whole truth,” he said.

This atmosphere of pressure, Kamal argued, is creating a culture of silence where “the full truth is often avoided to prevent confrontation”.

He called on the interim government to take “practical steps” to prevent such harassment and to foster an environment where the media can report freely and without fear.

NEWSROOM RESHUFFLES

While direct political interference in editorial decisions has receded, a new form of influence has emerged within media organisations themselves, Kamal noted.

These shifts, the journalist explained, were not ordered by the interim administration but emerged from within media houses themselves.

“Whatever happened, it happened through internal mechanisms,” he said. “The government didn’t dictate these changes.”

But many of these decisions, in his view, reflect political calculations by media owners who are seeking to align themselves with potential successors to power, such as the BNP, the National Citizen Party (NCP), or Jamaat-e-Islami.

Kamal pointed out that some individuals promoted to leadership roles had been sidelined over the past 15 years and are now returning to positions of influence — sometimes motivated by retribution.

“This is quite worrying,” he said. “It should not have happened.”

While ownership structures have largely remained the same, Kamal warned that editorial control is still vulnerable — not through state intervention, but through efforts by owners to secure influence and favour in the evolving political landscape.

WHY HE TOOK THE HELM OF COMMISSION

The Media Reform Commission was formed on Oct 18, 2024, as part of the Muhammad Yunus-led government’s broader effort to overhaul key state institutions in the wake of the political upheaval that followed the fall of the Awami League administration.

The commission, comprising 11 members including academics, journalists, and media owners, was tasked with diagnosing the systemic issues plaguing the media sector and proposing actionable reforms.

Kamal agreed to lead the commission when approached, bringing with him over 40 years of experience in both national and international journalism.

Over the course of his career, he has served as the consulting editor of Prothom Alo, editor of BBC Bangla, South Asia analyst for BBC World Service, and senior producer at BBC World Service and BBC New Media

He was also a consultant for the United Nations Radio, helping launch its Bengali broadcast in 2012, which continued until 2021.

During this time, he contributed to expanding the service in Hindi and Urdu.

He worked with the International Truth and Justice Project as an advisor.

Kamal viewed the reform commission’s role as an opportunity to address deep-seated problems in the industry.

“This media industry is facing serious challenges, and these challenges needed to be taken on seriously,” he said. “I thought my experiences would help, and so I took up the challenge.”

MAKING JOURNALISM FINANCIALLY SUSTAINABLE

In March 2025, the commission submitted its report to Yunus, outlining 20 recommendations aimed at reshaping the sector.

These recommendations addressed issues such as media ownership concentration, cross-ownership, and the need for financial transparency and independence.

At the heart of the report is the assertion that press freedom is inseparable from economic security.

“This independence actually depends on financial sustainability, financial security for the working men, women, journalists, workers, everyone in the media,” Kamal said. “On the other hand, media houses, they also need a sort of financial stability, sustainable model of business.”

The report warns that reliance on external patronage — in the form of advertising, subsidies, or political sponsorship — compromises independence and encourages self-censorship.

To counter this, it calls for urgent steps to ensure decent pay, job security for journalists, and business models that can support a free press without political or commercial strings attached.

TACKLING ‘FAKE’ CIRCULATION CLAIMS

Kamal said the government has expressed a willingness to implement some of the commission’s recommendations within its limited timeframe, starting with long-overdue reforms to circulation auditing.

A key issue, he explained, is the widespread inflation of newspaper circulation figures, which allows certain outlets to unfairly claim large shares of government advertising revenue. “This distortion is affecting their business model, their business prospect, potential,” he said.

According to the journalist, under existing government policy, a newspaper must claim a minimum circulation of 6,000 copies to be eligible for public advertising funds, and over 151,000 to receive the higher advertising rate—where the per-column-inch payment can jump from around Tk 400 to over Tk 900.

“So everyone therefore inflates their circulation numbers,” he said.

Kamal pointed out that, based on the declared figures from over 600 newspapers in Dhaka, it would imply that 15 million newspapers are circulated daily—more than the city’s entire population. “That doesn’t happen,” he said.

Data from the Dhaka Newspaper Hawkers’ Multipurpose Cooperative Society Limited, he added, shows that only about 52 newspapers are being sold in significant quantities—highlighting massive discrepancies between declared and actual sales.

Kamal criticised the current audit system as “corrupt,” saying it is often influenced by collusion between officials, media owners, and union representatives who provide “false” certifications.

To address this, the government plans to form a new taskforce that includes civil society organisations such as Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) and Shushashoner Jonno Nagorik (SHUJAN), alongside advertisers and independent media professionals.

“Then there will probably be a check and balance mechanism in the auditing system, which will prevent corruption,” he said.

UNREGULATED DIGITAL MEDIA ‘AFFECTING GOOD JOURNALISM’

Kamal warned that the rapid and unfiltered growth of digital media in Bangladesh is weakening fair competition and undermining journalistic standards.

“It’s affecting competition—fair competition, transparent competition. And it’s affecting journalism, good journalism,” he said.

More than 3,500 online news portals are currently registered with the government, but many lack even the basic infrastructure of a functioning newsroom. “How many of them have newsrooms like what you have here?” he asked.

The reform panel has recommended that registration and accreditation be limited to outlets that demonstrate the operational capacity of traditional newsrooms.

“They have to have a regular newsroom. Otherwise, they should not be treated as a mass media,” Kamal said.

While individuals are free to run personal or private websites, he stressed that only professional, newsroom-based platforms should qualify for government recognition and access to public incentives like tax breaks or subsidies.

PANEL CALLS FOR PERMANENT REGULATORY BODY

Kamal said the commission has recommended the formation of a permanent media commission that would regulate all forms of journalism—across print, broadcast, and online platforms.

“We said that we need a self-regulatory authority for journalism as a whole, irrespective of platforms,” he explained.

Although the previous government had proposed setting up a broadcast commission, Kamal noted that “that broadcast commission never came into being” during its 15 years in power.

He also pointed out that the existing Bangladesh Press Council only regulates newspapers and news agencies, not digital or broadcast media.

According to him, the proposed body should be tasked with scrutinising the qualifications of all outlets registered with the government.

“That commission should be given the responsibility of scrutinising the qualification or pre-qualification of these channels that have already been registered with the government,” he said.

He clarified that the goal is not to close any outlet, but to determine which ones merit state support. “By that way, you can narrow down mainstream media and make a broader, fair, free, transparent, competitive environment for the media.”

JOURNALIST ACCREDITATION

Kamal criticised the government's recent decision to scrap existing journalist accreditations en masse and require re-registration, calling it a “procedural mistake”.

While he acknowledged that the previous regime had allowed widespread misuse of press credentials—granting them to individuals who used the status to access ministers and government offices—he argued that a blanket approach was “unjustified”.

“They should have reviewed and renewed the deserving ones,” he said. “Others should have been cancelled.” Kamal said the intent to prevent abuse was valid, but the execution “lacked fairness and proper scrutiny”.

A BUSINESS BASE FOR MEDIA

Listing media houses on the stock market was among the commission’s key recommendations.

Kamal believes this move can bring much-needed transparency and accountability.

“There are plenty of good rules, but government applied those rules selectively,” he said, citing how one business group had bypassed banking laws using proxies to take control of more than a dozen banks.

“So that thing can happen again if there is no governance.”

He emphasised that public listing would force media companies to hold Annual General Meetings (AGM) and publish audited financials. “Media needs to be accountable. Media needs to be transparent. Whose interest it's serving? Is it the public interest or the owner's interest? Or their political master's interest?”

Kamal raised questions about current media investments. “We found out one company lost Tk 260 million in a year in this business. And they're continuing their business... So that practice is going on here. We need accountability. We need transparency.”

‘ONE HOUSE, ONE MEDIA’

To prevent media concentration and protect pluralism, the reform panel’s report proposes a “one-house, one-media” policy that would prohibit cross-ownership of multiple media types within the same company.

Kamal pointed to global precedents: “In America, cross-ownership is banned. New York Times cannot have a television channel now… In UK, it's called 2020 law.”

In Bangladesh, he observed, some media houses control multiple TV and newspaper outlets — a level of concentration he sees as a threat to democratic discourse.

“Media is not only a soft power, it influences public opinion. They can influence quite quickly and widely.”

He also noted that the Awami League had once shared this view. “In 1997, the government had a policy… not to allow cross-ownership, which subsequently they forgot.”

REGULATING SOCIAL MEDIA

Kamal acknowledged that the commission did not directly investigate social media platforms but warned of the massive impact of disinformation originating there.

“Social media is the main source that spreads false information, misinformation or disinformation,” Kamal said.

He highlighted the increasing scale of the problem due to the role of artificial intelligence in amplifying disinformation, making fact-checking a critical — though resource-intensive — task.

“Artificial intelligence has multiplied this risk of misinformation several times. It's a very big challenge now.”

The journalist proposed collaboration among newsrooms and recommended that government offer policy support, including facilitating access to advanced technologies and tools.

He said the commission also advocated for national media literacy campaigns to equip the public with the tools to discern truth from falsehood in the digital age.

“People need to be educated that whatever you are seeing in social media, that's not edited and that there are risks of falsehood or misinformation,” Kamal added.

He stressed the need for formal and sustained government-backed initiatives to build critical thinking among users. “Why and how misinformation spreads — that should be explained. And then they should be encouraged to check it with the mainstream media stories or outlets.”

Kamal emphasised that promoting media literacy should be treated as a public interest responsibility.

“Government should take media literacy programs seriously,” he said.

JOURNALISTIC MALPRACTICE

When asked what can be done to address journalistic malpractice, Kamal pointed to financial motives — both personal and institutional — as a key driver.

He recalled an unusual complaint from a deputy commissioner (DC) who said he regularly faces pressure from journalists affiliated with large media houses owned by industrial groups.

“He [the DC] thinks that government should consider or commission should recommend that media ownership for business conglomerates should be restricted,” Kamal said.

“Because you know, in industrial areas — land grabbing, river encroachment, illegal activities like transportation overload, not paying proper taxes — lots of things happen,” he added.

“And whenever the administration tries to enforce the law there, these local journalists employed by big media houses are being used to lobby, influence, sometimes blackmail the administration.”

He described the situation as damaging to the credibility of journalism and disruptive to public administration. “It’s a major concern for the profession, its reputation, its integrity, and also for the administration.”

Kamal Ahmed said the commission has recommended introducing a national minimum wage for journalists, equivalent to that of Grade 9 civil service officers, in order to ensure financial security and help reduce unethical practices driven by financial pressure.

“We also said the government must ban the practice of assigning journalists to non-journalistic tasks — particularly procuring advertisements or other business-related work,” he added.