Bangladesh has 3,000+ print outlets and 30+ TV channels — most owned by business conglomerates with direct political ties. Media owners use outlets to protect business interests and align with whoever holds power.
Key data (RSF, CGS, TIB 2024–26):
• 60%+ of TV channels showed pro-government bias during 2024 elections
• 78% of election coverage favoured ruling party (AIUB study, 2024)
• Only 28% of Bangladeshis trust mainstream news (Reuters Institute 2023)
• 62% exposed to fake news weekly (TIB Media Integrity Survey)
• 41% of journalists say ownership "significantly affects" fact-checking
1. Ownership Capture: Business tycoons buy outlets to shield companies from investigative reporting
2. Phone Calls from Power: Officials directly call editors to kill or alter stories
3. Ad Dependence: Govt and corporations control ad budgets — critical outlets get ads pulled
4. Legal Weaponisation: CSA used to jail journalists — 130+ facing charges creates mass self-censorship
5. Journalist Partisanship: Many journalists publicly aligned with parties, compromising editorial integrity
6. Mob Violence: Dec 2025 — mobs attacked and burned Prothom Alo & Daily Star offices
OPEN RESEARCH TOPICS FOR JOURNALISTS & ACADEMICS
7 Research Opportunities in Bangladesh Media
🔬
1. Systematic Bias Mapping of All 30 TV Channels
High Priority · Quantitative
No comprehensive content analysis exists covering all 30 licensed TV channels over a sustained period.
Gap: Most studies cover 2–3 outlets only Funders: EU Media Freedom Fund · USAID · Ford Foundation
💰
2. Advertising Revenue & Editorial Independence
High Priority · Investigative
How do state advertising allocations shape editorial decisions? No systematic mapping exists.
Value: Would expose the economic mechanism of media capture with hard data
📱
3. Social Media Misinformation Ecosystem
Urgent · Digital
How does misinformation spread from fringe Facebook pages to mainstream TV? No network-level study exists in Bangladesh.
👩
4. Gender & Minority Representation in News
Important · Equity
How are women, religious minorities, indigenous groups and CHT communities represented? Systematic study is absent.
🏛️
5. Fact-Checking Infrastructure & Capacity
Urgent · Institutional
Existing: Boom Bangladesh · Dismislab · Rumor Scanner — but severely under-resourced Stat: Only 16% of journalists rated their outlets fact-checking as "very effective"
Truth-first AI journalism analysis platform for Bangladesh. Objectivity and factual accuracy are non-negotiable.
A
Md. Alauddin Al Azad
Creator & Developer
News Views BD · Bangladesh
News Views BD is an independent, non-profit public service platform built to strengthen media literacy, combat misinformation, and empower citizens of Bangladesh to hold media accountable — freely and transparently.
✅ API keys hidden server-side (Cloudflare Workers)
✅ HTTPS + HSTS enforced globally
✅ Per-IP rate limiting (8/min, 200/day per user)
✅ Prompt injection detection & blocking
✅ Input sanitization & size limits (4MB text, 20MB image)
✅ DDoS protection via Cloudflare network
✅ Image type & format validation
✅ Response caching (20 min TTL)
✅ No user data stored anywhere
✅ 330+ global edge locations
📊 Analysis Methodology
Truth First: AI is instructed to prioritize facts over narrative. Every finding includes a confidence level.
Cross-Verification: Key claims verified against known facts, timelines and verifiable sources.
Standards: SPJ Code of Ethics · BBC Editorial Guidelines · Reuters Handbook · AP Stylebook · Bangladesh Press Council · Dart Center · UNESCO · IFCN Fact-Checking Principles
Limitation: AI cannot access live internet. Claims requiring real-time verification are flagged for manual checking. Results show confidence scores, not certainties.
⚙️ Platform Info
Hosted on Cloudflare Pages · Unlimited bandwidth · No timeout · 330+ global locations
Public access: 100,000 requests/day free
Per user: 8 requests/min · 200/day Total cost: $0.00/month · Forever free