Farah Zahir
Editor, Oniket Research Group
Bangladesh operates one of the most complex and contested media environments in South Asia. Boasting more than 543 daily newspapers, dozens of television channels, and a rapidly expanding digital press, the country’s media sector is vast in scale but persistently fragile in its ethical grounding. Analyzing how codes of conduct and journalism ethics have evolved across more than five decades reveals both the democratic promise of the press and its systematic failure to establish genuine institutional accountability.
Colonial Inheritances and Toothless Regulators
The structural vulnerabilities of modern Bangladeshi journalism trace back to British colonial governance, an era when press laws functioned primarily as instruments of state control rather than frameworks for professional excellence. Following independence in 1971, the newborn state inherited this restrictive regulatory architecture and adapted it only partially.
The first formal attempt at institutional oversight came via the Bangladesh Press Council Act of 1974. Charged with safeguarding press freedom and establishing professional standards, the Press Council was designed to adjudicate complaints against rogue reporting. In reality, the body was left underfunded, understaffed, and largely toothless, operating as a bureaucratic formality rather than a dynamic regulator.
A more concrete ethical framework materialized through the Code of Conduct for Newspapers, introduced in 1993 and subsequently amended in 2002. The code outlines clear foundational principles:
- Uncompromising truthfulness and factual accuracy.
- Strict impartiality in political and social reporting.
- A prohibition on content capable of inciting communal violence or undermining national unity.
Though a welcome step forward on paper, the code suffered from a fatal flaw: its implementation relied entirely on voluntary compliance. Most domestic newsrooms completely ignored the directive to build their own internal guardrails. This institutional vacuum was laid bare by the 2019 Jatri survey, which revealed that 75 percent of Dhaka-based journalists worked in organizations that possessed no internal ethics guidebooks whatsoever.
The Trap of Legislative Overreach and Digital Control
For a brief window, the enactment of the Right to Information (RTI) Act in 2009 signaled a progressive shift, legally obliging public authorities to share information with the press and the public. This spirit of transparency, however, was quickly neutralized by a parallel current of highly restrictive legislation running in the opposite direction.
The most controversial milestone in this regulatory regression was the Digital Security Act (DSA) of 2018. By criminalizing content deemed false, offensive, or threatening to state security under deliberately ambiguous language, the law exposed journalists, editors, and social media users to arbitrary arrest. Hundreds of cases were filed, triggering a massive chilling effect across the industry and cementing self-censorship as a basic survival strategy.
When the state repackaged this law as the Cyber Security Act (CSA) in 2023, independent critics noted that the core substantive restrictions remained completely intact. The name changed, but the practice did not. The law continued to be weaponized against investigative reporters unearthing corporate corruption, political misconduct, and human rights abuses. By the time the historic 2024 political transition ended the Sheikh Hasina administration following widespread civil protests, the media landscape stood financially broken, politically captured, and ethically compromised.
The Policy Gap: The Post-2024 Transition
Following the fall of the previous regime, the interim government took initial steps to address these legislative wounds by drafting a new Cyber Security Ordinance to replace the repressive 2023 Act. However, a major policy gap remains: early drafts of the new ordinance still retain broad clauses regarding defamation and content removal. Civil society and international press watchdogs warn that without explicit judicial oversight and the complete removal of warrantless search provisions, the new cyber laws risk repeating the historical cycle of state-sponsored intimidation.
Modern Milestones Against Chronic Realities
The post-2024 environment has introduced renewed momentum for media self-regulation. In December 2025, the industry marked a significant milestone with the launch of Bangladesh’s first-ever comprehensive Code of Ethics for Broadcast Journalists. Developed with support from BBC Media Action’s PIMHIE project, the code was distributed to more than 1,400 journalists across 50 television channels, followed by structural orientation sessions to embed these practices into daily newsroom operations. Concurrently, an Election Reporting Handbook was developed, with several of its core recommendations integrated into the revised guidelines issued by the National Election Commission ahead of the forthcoming general election.
These micro-level advances, however, continue to clash with massive structural weaknesses across the industry:
- Conglomerate Capture: Media ownership remains heavily concentrated in the hands of massive business conglomerates and politically aligned individuals, creating permanent conflicts of interest where commercial managers routinely sacrifice public interest reporting for corporate public relations.
- Envelope Journalism: The unethical practice of exchanging cash or luxury gifts for favorable coverage remains widespread. Surveys of Dhaka journalists indicate that 27 percent personally knew colleagues who accepted money from sources, while 48 percent knew peers who accepted gifts.
- Systemic Gender Vulnerability: Newsrooms remain deeply hostile environments for women. A joint study revealed that 17 percent of all media professionals have experienced workplace sexual harassment, with female journalists facing abuse at six times the rate of their male colleagues.
A Structural Blueprint for Permanent Reform
Piecemeal ethical handbooks are insufficient to fix a broken system. Rebuilding the integrity of Bangladesh’s fourth estate requires systemic, legislative, and financial overhauls.
Genuine Legislative Independence
The current Cyber Security Ordinance must be thoroughly purged of any clauses that criminalize dissent, and it should be replaced with rights-based legislation in line with international human rights standards. Furthermore, the government’s recent initiatives to draft a National Media Commission Ordinance must move away from bureaucratic control. The proposed National Media Commission must be structured as a fully autonomous, unified body insulated from partisan capture, empowered to protect working journalists while transparently investigating public complaints.
Financial Viability and Structural Autonomy
Editorial independence is impossible without financial sustainability. As digital advertising revenue continues to migrate away from local publishers to global technology platforms, media houses have become dangerously dependent on corporate patronage and government advertisements. To counteract this vulnerability, the state and media entrepreneurs must actively pioneer new economic frameworks:
- The development of robust, subscription-based digital journalism models to prioritize reader accountability over corporate sponsors
- The creation of transparent, non-partisan public media funding systems modeled after independent global broadcasters.
- Targeted tax incentives for independent, investigative media outlets that actively maintain verified, internal ethics boards.
Bangladesh’s press has survived colonial suppression, post-independence institutional failures, authoritarian crackdowns, and the chaotic financial disruptions of the digital age. The nation now stands at a historic crossroads. Whether current media reforms mature into a durable democratic achievement or dissolve into another unfulfilled promise depends entirely on the collective courage of journalists, citizens, and policymakers to build an information ecosystem that refuses to be bought or silenced.
