Media analyst and the former chief of the Media Reform Commission, Kamal Ahmed, said that while journalists in Bangladesh could now criticise the government and politicians more freely after the July uprising, the news media remained under serious threat from organised mob violence, and the bureaucratic resistance to key reforms that the interim government has failed to address.

Kamal said that control over newsroom earlier had come from a single powerful centre but had now shifted to unpredictable groups mobilised for political, business, or personal interests, often using religious or nationalist rhetoric.

Recent arson attacks on newspaper offices were unprecedented in scale and brutality.

Kamal said that the Media Reform Commission had submitted a list of immediately implementable recommendations to the chief adviser, including enacting a journalists’ protection law, forming a permanent Bangladesh Media Commission to replace the ineffective Press Council, ensuring fair verification of newspaper circulation and television TRP ratings, reducing corporate tax on media houses, and abolishing the provision for advance income tax payment for freelancers and columnists.

None of these recommendations, he said, has been implemented.

He described the media industry as financially unsustainable and dependent on government, advertisers, or political interests.

He added that fraudulent circulation claims and manipulated audience ratings divert public advertising to hundreds of non-professional ‘news outlets’ while damaging credible newspapers and broadcasters.

Kamal pointed out that there had been a broad political consensus on forming a media commission, but the bureaucratic resistance had stalled the initiative.

He also criticised journalist organisations for failing to press strongly for reforms due to political divisions and personal interests.

On the state media, he said that decades-old promises to grant autonomy to the Bangladesh Television, the Bangladesh Betar, and the Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha were also blocked by the bureaucracy, despite recommendations to merge them into a single autonomous public broadcasting agency.

He further said that the government was violating fundamental rights by denying bail to journalists detained in murder cases filed after August, calling such charges unacceptable and demanding immediate review of the cases.