THE Democracy Watch survey on the governmentopposition ratio in news coverage by the Bangladesh Television has revealed nothing new. It has only put on record something the viewers in general are already aware of and have got used to over the years. With the change of power, faces dominating the news on the state-owned BTV only change. Pro-government and proruling party bias in news coverage on these television channels remains regardless. Such apathy or antipathy to the opposition parties actually tells on the credibility of visual news media.

The BTV has not had any ideal reputation for objectivity in news coverage and as such its appeal to the general viewers has been rather limited. What is worrisome, however, is the fact that three popular private channels, namely the Ekushey Television (ETV), the Channel-i and the ATN Bangla, have offered small space to the opposition in their news coverage. The survey shows that the governmentopposition ratio in their news coverage is 83:17, 84:16 and 85:15 respectively.

A commonplace argument in favour of preponderance of government and ruling party news is that their activity level is higher than that accounted for by the opposition. Hence, the asymmetry. Even so, the question remains whether whatever opposition event there is to cover is actually covered or not. And what seems possible is that coverage of opposition activities may come with a slant.

Whoever is in power makes it a point to control the state-owned electronic media first and then influence the private TV channels one way or the other. The trend cannot be healthy for a democracy; for, it is the media, which should objectively analyse and assess the performance of the government. The private channels are, and can be expected to be, more professional in its coverage and treatment of news and views. As for the BTV, let's grant it the autonomy it has deserved as the tax-payers' media.