Journalism In Bangladesh

Due to colonial reasons, however, it began in Bengal ahead of many countries of Asia. The history of modern journalism in Bengal was inaugurated by James Augustus Hicky by publishing a weekly journal named Hicky’s Bengal Gazette at Calcutta in January 1780. An advertisement of the paper read, `a weekly political and commercial paper open to all parties, but influenced by none’.

The year 1818 marks the beginning of Bengali journalism in undivided India. This year witnessed the publication of three Bangla newspapers bengal gazette (published from Calcutta), digdarshan (published from Calcutta) and Samachar Darpan (published from Sreerampore). The Bengal Gazette is said to have been published first which was followed by the Samachar Darpan and the Digdarshan. The first Bangla newspaper, the Samachar Darpan was published from serampore in 1818. The first weekly from Dhaka The Dacca News was published in 1856. The long lasting newspaper the Dhaka Prakash was first published in 1861 and the Dhaka Darpan in 1863.

After the creation of Pakistan a large number of owners/publishers and editors migrated from East Bengal to India. As a result, there had been created a vacuum in newspaper publication sector in the newly created eastern part (East Pakistan) of Pakistan. We find no newspaper was publishing from Dhaka at that time. Then the main newspapers in Dhaka were the Daily Azad, the Ittehad and the Morning News etc and those newspapers were used to publish from Kolkata. For political reality, in fact, those newspapers migrated to Dhaka within a year or two. Then the newspapers like the Ittefaq, the Sangabad, the Pakistan Observer etc came out from Dhaka which have been still considered as the pioneer newspapers (The Bangladesh Observer was declared closed in June 2010) of the country. According to recent media list (1 July 2010) as prepared by the Department of Film and Publications (DFP), Ministry of Information, Government of Bangladesh there are about 457 newspapers/periodicals published in Bangladesh now’ [Dailies: Dhaka 92, Outside Dhaka (Mufassal) 192; Weekly: Dhaka 69, Outside Dhaka 55; Fortnightly: Dhaka 15, Outside Dhaka 03, Monthly: Dhaka 26, Outside Dhaka 04 and Quarterly: Dhaka 01]. Publication of newspapers initially during 1950’s and then onwards after 1990 speaks a massive growth and development in the field of journalism since 1947 in this country.

Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists, Dhaka Union of Journalists,