Several senior Bengali journalists and editors with decades of experience in top international broadcasting and media houses have pulled up Deutsche Welle (DW) for “independent portrayal” and colluding with the controversial and partisan offshore portal Netranews, hiding the fact that the portal funded by US and headed by the son –in-law of Bangladesh’s opposition leader.
They pointed to complete blackout of such political identity and activism DW's undermining the standard practice of relying completely on in-house teams for investigations and instead outsourcing or collaborating with other portals-- specially NN run by David Bergman and Tasneem Khalil, both accused of amplifying opposition narrative, riddled with half-truths, often “scare mongering” campaign, a record of regime change actions.
“Mllions would die from Covid, vaccine would never arrive under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and a complete breakdown in the healthcare system” are some such scare rousing headlines still can be found on that portal, while all top global indexes including the World Health Organization lauded Bangladesh Premier for “deft covid management, an exemplar for many countries with lower death tolls and higher vaccination rate”.
“If these narratives are found to be fake in the future or if it is proven later that these were false scares and not based on facts, then their journalism will indeed go down as shoddy. That's it”, said Ruben Banarjee, former Editor in Chief of Outlook magazine & Former planning editor at AlJazeera.
“I can say that it's very shoddy journalism and that shouldn't have happened” he observed in an interview following a furor over DW’s projection of NN as an independent one, regardless of a plethora of “fear mongering lies”, as exposed earlier in media reports.
“If I lead an organization, my journalists will be responsible for the journalism for that organization because journalism must comply with a process - from conducting investigations to talking to people, and cross-checking”, added Ruben who also authored a number of books including a recent bestseller " Editor Missing."
“How can I outsource my journalism? Say, I have delegated the job to a contractor. It is like you carry on this investigation on my behalf. What did he do? Did he follow the process? Did he follow the ethical standards? Did he provide the real news or fake news? I don't know”, questioned Ruben.
“DW as a news organization should be answering this, and explaining this, what was their involvement in this project because they are claiming that it is a joint production and what were the checks and balances that DW enforced or maintained while this production was done?
The word 'independent' has been abused and exploited. True independence depends on many other factors, said Banerjee.
“As I am against the government, I am independent. But, I can work for the opposition too. Then I am not independent. We don't cross-check that or think. So the definition of independence or what is now trendy is that independent means anti-government.”
But, DW is a large organization. Their resources are abundant. They are affluent as well. So, why did they outsource another website? Even if they outsource, DW should be asked how much involvement DW had in the project and the so-called investigation that is happening.
Over US embassy in Dhaka sharing this piece from facebook page, Ruben added “Without checking or cross-checking veracity, without checking whether something is true or false, and after the birth of social media, everybody is more trigger-happy. Somebody got something and uploaded it to social media. Who does the course correction? Those who think about their own credibility. If my credibility is not my concern, why should I be bothered? I don't want to comment on this particular issue as I don't know it intimately.
Farid Hossain, former Bangladesh Bureau chief of Associated Press, said “Bergman cannot be projected as independent given his long affiliation with certain quarters with close ties with the war criminals.
"His activism in defence of self confessed war criminals, and now against Sheikh Hasina who initiated the war crimes trial ending a forty five years wait for justice for millions of families who suffered from these collaborators clearly makes it agenda driven.”
Former BBC's East India Bureau Chief Subir Bhaumik questioned the funding of the Netranews US’s National Endowment for Democracy.
Citing a magnum opus, "The US Intelligence Community", authored by Jeffrey T RaIchelson, a celebrated global expert on US intelligence, Bhaumik revealed: "In addition, activities such as the support of political parties or broadcasting that would have been conducted as covert operations are now often done overtly. Thus, the National Endowment for Democracy provided support to Nicaraguan political parties who ran against the Sandinistas in the 1990 elections."
Richelson quotes a secret Sept 22, 1989 National Security Directive that declared: "The Department of State shall undertake a vigorous overt program to support a free and fair election process. Every effort will be made, consistent with US law, to assist the democratic opposition to compete effectively with the Sandinista regime."
Like that campaign against Sandinista regime, pointing out Bergman’s father in law’s association with the BNP Jamaat led alliance, as Dr kamal led the alliance in last parliamentary election, in that case and the broadcasting linked to Netra, given the portal’s long track record of “triggering scare campaign at the height of Covid”.
“During my BBC days, many activists like Khalil and Bergman came and pleaded for a joint collaboration with bbc but never did BNC allow such affiliation’ he added.
Moreover, Khalil and Bergman both don’t hold any serious credentials as journalists with none of them having worked as responsible international outlets.
Until the media in Bangladesh exposed the shoddy past of Hasinur Khalil tried to project Rahman as an “innocent victim” at the hands of law enforcers in NN's high-pitch campaign to project "grave human rights violations" in Bangladesh.
Moreover in a blatant show of defending the opposition alliance, Khalil, in his speech at a discussion in EU made serious distortion of facts, and half-truths as he observed that “normal situation in human rights” existed until return of elected Awami League led government in 2009 while the last regime of Begum Zia led Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) between 2001 and 2006 was described as “a reign of terror” by highly acclaimed investigative journalist including Bertil Litner and others.
In reference to “disinformation campaigns”, veteran journalist Syed Badrul Ahsan, who also authored a number of books on historic incidents, said, “The naysayers and the doomsday prophets should have been careful with their projections. A responsible opposition must see beyond the ambition to gain power. It does itself little credit when it looks away from the good done by the government of the day.”
