[vinnomot] Policy Innovation: Reform in media sector

Policy Innovation: Reform in media sector

But this never came up to discussion during last one year. The bosses of media do not want it and the information minister also (probably) didn't want it!

 

 

In order do justice to a job that needs a lot of brainwork and investigation, the journalists / reporters in the media has to be given enough resources so that they can do meaningful reporting. What they do right now, is press-release journalism or press-conference journalism, mostly.

 

Off course, there are many who goes beyond this. But their number is few.

 

People in the media sector has to be provided right amount of resources.

 

When we say that, we know, most of the people involved would like to say .... wage board implementation, etc etc. Certainly there are things that are positive. But we think there are more effective way to tackle the problem to improve situation. Market based mechanism should be used to improve the situation.

 

Could you elaborate a bit? - you would ask - we know. Let us do exactly that.

 

In order to a market to work effectively, there has to be market regulator. This regulator may be an initiative from the government or it can be interally developed mechanism such as BFUJ can make a body to set the rules of the market which the market players adopt voluntarily.

 

So, what that market regulatory body can do - if there is one?

 

They should set the standard. Also, they should set a standard of how much money should be spent to produce a quality product of say "one column inch" of print media or "one minute of air time" of eletronic media (TV or Radio). Certainly that will be a range - an upper limit and a lower limit within which every media organization will be encouraged to operate (profit or loss). Once that range is determined, the body should look into the number of media organizations and calculate how much revenue is needed for them to operate in a healthy situation.

 

Or the body can do a reverese calculation. They can look at the strength of the economy and revenue stream of the industry.

 

Best process will be to do the both.

 

Once that is done, our guess is, the recommendation that will come out of that excercise is a major restructuring of the sector.

 

How do you do that?

 

The first question will be - how is the legal infrastructure?

 

We know, there was no law on merger and acquisition (M&A) of two banks - let alone two media organization. Bangladesh Bank made a draft law on merger of Banks, but not sure whether that came into being.

 

What is the status of the laws of M&A of any two companies? Is there a sound law? If there is none, Dr. Akbar Ali Khan should be working on these, instead of the chapabazi he usually does on other things.

 

Assuming there is or will be good law on company M&A, the media regulatory body have to sit down and think about whether there is any specific characteristics that would require special treatment of media companies. Our guess is there will be such a need. Most of the developed democracies consider media companies just more than a profit-making company. So, they have to find out what special treatment should be there for the media sector in Bangladesh. They should come up with a draft law based on the generilized law for company M&A.

 

Hopefully, once these are all done, the media companies would start using market senses to take advantage of that reform law. At the end, the journalists would get a better pay, the owners will make money instead of paying loss and most importantly, Bangaldesh would get a vibrant media sector.

 

If you thought some of the ideas are worth of your reading time, please forward it to others. If you have an ear to the columinsts in regular traditional media, please forward it to them. If you have an ear to the journalists and news editors of the electronic media, discuss it with them. Hope they would look at the suggestions and give due diligence. 
 
 
Thanks for your time,
Innovation Line
 
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Note: This is a freelance column, published mainly in different internet based forums. This column is open for contribution by the members of new generation, sometimes referred to as Gen 71. If you identify yourself as someone from that age-group and want to contribute to this column, please feel free to contact. Thanks to the group moderator for publishing the article.
 
Dear readers, also, if you thought the article was important enough so it should come under attention of the head of the government please forward the message to them. Email address for the Chief Advisor: feeedback@pmo.gov.bd or at http://www.cao.gov.bd/feedback/comments.php . The more of you forward it to them, the less will be the need to go back to street agitation. Use ICT to practice democracy. It is already proven that this government responds to the feedback.
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