A threatened profession

Photo: STAR

It is reassuring that journalists and the interne doctors and senior administrative officials of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) have decided to withdraw the cases they had lodged against one another with the Shahbagh police station. Mercifully, good sense has finally prevailed over insensitivity and madness.
Before we heave a sigh of relief, it would be worthwhile to consider in retrospect the odious chain of events that had brought the DMCH administration, interne doctors and working journalists face to face. Needless to say, since July 22 till July 25, the journalists engaged in their professional duty at the DMCH remained at the receiving end. What was their fault? First, they reported in the electronic and the print media the alleged mistreatment of a patient at the hands of a DMCH doctor. The report enraged the doctors and they thought that by making the incident public through the media, they have been wronged.
What happened over the next four days was the result of that misplaced feeling of being wronged. Strangely, it never crossed the minds of the angry interne doctors and the DMCH administration that the journalists were just performing their duties, like they were (doctors) doing theirs. There is, however, a world of difference between the kinds of duty doctors and the journalists do. Even so, either has a job to do. And it must be understood that journalists have nothing personal against doctors.
It would also be naïve to think that the students with best performance in the Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSC) exams who qualify as medical students and then go through the gruelling years of intensive studies and training at the medical colleges are not aware about the job of a journalist. They very much are. But then how could these most brilliant products of our universities think that journalists were out to harm their reputations and were thus provoked to behave so irrationally and thought nothing of attacking the working journalists with clubs, hockey sticks and brickbats? Had the reporters on the spot made a wrong reporting, they (doctors) could well send their rejoinder with clarification along with their own version of what actually happened regarding the treatment of the patient in question to the newspapers and TV stations.
The same papers that carried the report or electronic media houses that aired it would have also carried or broadcast their rejoinder as well as their own version of the incident. That is the standard procedure to deal with the media. They could also have recourse to the court for redress. That the DMCH interne did not choose that standard procedure makes the entire episode intriguing as to why the fallout of the said report could take such a violent turn!
We may recall here the recent incidents of face off between the police and journalists. Police on different occasions had beat up journalists on duty with truncheons, broke and snatched their cameras and even confined them in isolation. We may also recall the advice the state minister for home had given to the journalists that they (journalists) should keep away from the police. But the journalists and the police are not at war with one another. The members of the police are also not fools not to understand the job of an on-duty journalist.
Why do then such incidents take place again and again?
The important point to note here is that these untoward incidents, though happening sporadically, are not all isolated instances of misunderstanding among the parties involved. Whatever the specific circumstances of a particular incident involving journalist, in most cases, it falls into a pattern. And in each case, there is a political overtone to these sporadically occurring incidents.
In the DMCH incident, for example, people were first wondering how could doctors go to that length as to take sticks in their hands and chase, of all people, the journalists! Later, there was no mystery as it became clear from follow-up reports that political elements were behind the violent incidents.
It was a case of partisan politics versus journalism, where people of medical profession were incidentally the mere actors. In another case, it could be professionals from other vocations such as students, teachers, the police, businessmen or others It is the infusion of overarching politics, or to be more precise, power politics, in different professional bodies that has rendered these otherwise highly dedicated professional institutions violence-prone.
In some cases even journalists themselves are not immune from the evil influence of partisan politics. The phenomenon has been instrumental in creating political turfs and its attendant turf wars at every conceivable place: in the administration, in the professional bodies, in the academic institutions, research organisations, you name it. On top of everything else is the attitude of power politics towards the Press in general.
This is very unfortunate that in Bangladesh the role of the Fourth Estate, the Press, is yet to get its due recognition. The press people are constantly being made the target of unkind criticism and violence. Clearly, it is the facts reported in the media that irks the powerful vested quarters.
Until the government is earnest in its commitment to allow free flow of information by allowing the Press to function without any hindrance, the threat to working journalists will continue. Until the situation changes for the better, journalism will remain an endangered profession in Bangladesh.

The writer is Editor Science & Life, The Daily Star.