Media Monitoring Report March 2020 Prepared for Bangladesh Health Watch Prepared by Media Professionals Group 1 | P a g e TABLE OF CONTENTS Newspapers Monitoring Report at a glance Focus of Media Monitoring Methodology Newspaper Coverage Scenario of Health Issues 1. Issues covered by Newspaper 2. Publication overview Coverage of Health Issues Interactive Journalism and Citizen Journalism 3. Summary Observations Annexure 2 | P a g e Newspapers Monitoring Report at a glance Mass Media in Bangladesh is always active to promote issues related to peoples’ life. Though we are living in social media age but still mainstream media has very good command on socio-economic and political life in Bangladesh. Health is an issue related to life so all issues of human life are directly and indirectly associated with health issues. It has been getting due attention of media. Now Coronavirus related pandemic is the main health issue of media coverage in Bangladesh. It is fact that like other issues, Media Coverage on health issues has been giving us different dynamics of that and this are helping to generate clues for designing different plans and policies. Considering above scenario, as part of assignment of Bangladesh Health Watch, we have developed a monitoring report of Prothom Alo, Daily Star, Samakal, Kalerkantho, New Age and Bangla Tribune. Prthom Alo is one of the leading Bangla Newspapers in Bangladesh in terms of readership and credibility. Other two Bangla newspapers-Samakal and Kalerkantho, they are credible with lesser readership compare to Prothom Alo. Daily Star is credible English with highest English readership. News Age is also credible with lesser readership compare to Daily Star. Within only online newspapers, Bangla Tribune has good readership and credibility. Each Newspaper has its own style of presentation for making better understanding of readers. Health is a regular coverage issue. But Samakal, Kalerkantho and Daily Star have special weekly publications on health issues only. These are Daktar Bari (Doctor House) of Samakal, Daktar Achen (There is a Doctor) of Kalerkantho and Health of Daily Star. Prothom Alo, New Age and Bangla Tribune are publishing special publication on health in their publication on lifestyle. Main focus of health related special publications are making available information on how people can manage their health in a better way. So health tips and guidelines, different information on health issues, prescription on different health issues and Answers of readers queries are main issues in those special publications. Those newspapers are doing Interactive Journalism in their online versions. So readers can get opportunity to interact with respective news organization for presenting their feedback and further information from their end on published items. Prothom Alo is getting regular more feedback from readers on their published items. Online version of Prothom Alo runs Citizen Journalism initiative. Any interested person can send all types of write ups, photos and video. They are publishing selected write ups regularly. Majority published items of Citizen Journalism are related to corona virus during March. 3 | P a g e Each Newspaper has published mainly two types of reports – information updates and in depth coverage. Official and unofficial sources are using by news organization for collecting information. Expert’s opinion has different types of presentation such as report based on expert or experts’ interview or interviews, full length interview and their opinion based on full length. Here we have monitored daily each report, feature, editorial, post editorial and article, interview and experts opinion related to health issues published during March 2020 in the stated newspapers. Except Bangla Tribune, all five has both online and print versions. Each Online version has two presentations – real time updates and full newspaper as printed one. Bangla Tribune is an online newspaper and it has two online versions- real time updates and online daily newspaper. Two types of coverage, these are coverage related to coronavirus pandemic and other health issues. Board based issues under corona virus coverage are preparedness, health infrastructure, awareness, health services, health economy, health related economy- impacts and livelihood support for common people, challenges of health services and ways for addressing those challenges. Each Newspaper has covered similar list of issues. We have compiled published items of each newspaper according to identified issues and selected representative published items for getting better understanding on full coverage scenario by avoiding repetition of similar items. We have found 43 different issues covered by newspapers with 136 sub issues on Coronavirus coverage and 12 other health issues where 24 sub issues are there. The list issues are as bellow with link of respective publications; these links are available in the Annexure. Daily Update on Coronavirus, preparedness and performance of health department were main focus of all six newspapers. Every media has tried to disclose information on lack and need of preparation for ensuring proper measures related to conronavirus in their own style. They always have been engaging respective experts (medical professionals, economists and other opinion leaders) to make inputs available for public awareness as well as formation of plans and required implementation. Newspapers have been presenting religious interpretation (mainly Islamic) for making understanding of the people those who are more inclined to religion. Kalerkantho has been doing this type of coverage regularly; other Bangla newspapers have been doing the same. Identified Key Issues from newspapers monitoring are : 1. Information on a plan for handling pandemic is available, which was developed in 2017 but spent money by doing nothing, 4 | P a g e 2. Information on different Government Updates and Actions are available, 3. Public Health Services delivery outlets (i.e. Hospitals) were not ready with necessary equipments and logistics, 4. Govt. actions has started little late though they got enough time for preparation (outbreak of this virus in China in late of November in 2019), 4. Lack of coordinated efforts and actions, 5. No comprehensive plan is available, 6. Suffering of people in getting Public Health Services, 7. Sufferings of people in getting Private Health Services, 8. Shortage of PPEs and Test Kits, 9. Test Kit has invented by Bangladeshi scientists, 10. Govt. Fund allocation, 11. Voluntary Activities for helping people, 12. Economic Impacts and future actions, 12. Success Stories, 13. Human Stories related to health and livelihood issues, 14. Pro-people initiatives and 11. Other than Coronavirus issues are also covered, Media has been doing awareness campaign by disclosing local and international scenario, guidelines and tips as much as possible covering maximum aspects for their readers. Different suggestions and policy prescriptions for better health services and recovering loss due to impact of this virus are also available here. Published reports, articles, editorial of all six newspapers have a strong focus on need of an Inclusive Comprehensive Plan for addressing Coronavirus issues for activating respective Govt. and Non Government actors in this regard. Interested party can use this monitoring report as a reference for future work. Focus of Media Monitoring It is a Media Monitoring Report on Health Issues with an objective to know media coverage dynamics for March 2020. Though health is multi-dimensional issue but during study period, corona virus related pandemic is the main health issue around the globe, as well as in Bangladesh. The Monitoring Report is based on coverage of 6 daily newspapers and news portal for March 2020, these are: Prothom Alo, Daily Star, Samakal, Kalerkantho, New Age and Bangla Tribune. Considering good audience and side by side credibility these have been selected in consultation with Bangladesh Health Watch/ Methodology . We have read each report, feature, editorial, post editorial and article, interview and expert’s opinion related to health issues published during this month in stated newspapers, and have compiled selected write-ups on a daily basis. Each news organization is active to update their portal in real time basis. So we monitor those also but our focus was daily publication only for this study. We have indentified core issue or message of each published item and have developed issue based storage and simultaneously we have developed a list of issues for each newspaper. Later we have developed a list of sub issues under each issue related to health. Now issue along with sub issue based compilation of the 6 newspapers are available here. 5 | P a g e . Preparedness, health infrastructure, health related safety measures, awareness, health services, health economy, health related economy- impacts and livelihood support for common people, challenges of health services and ways for addressing those challenges. We have also looked into health issues other than pandemic also here. Later we developed a presentation of overall newspaper coverage scenario by selected items with links on Health Coverage for March 2020. So it is now a monitoring report for disclosing issues for further work side by side a comprehensive publication for all. Newspaper Coverage Scenario of Health Issues Due to unnatural situation, newspapers print copies are not reaching to most of readers but internet has been helping them to