The 5th dialogue under the project Transnationalism and Development entitled Media and Diaspora took place on 25 September, 2006 at 11 am at the British Council auditorium. The purpose of the dialogue was to present the role of the media in presenting the diaspora community.

The keynote speaker in this dialogue was Dr. Tasneem Siddiqui. She presented paper entitled Media and Diaspora in the UK and the USA. Four journalists from four different newspapers presented the role of their respective newspaper.

In the keynote paper Dr. Tasneem Siddiqui gave a profile of the global Bangladeshi diaspora and their media. They maintain Bangla and English weeklies, radio stations and television channels. In the newspapers they mainly publish four kinds of newspapers. Firstly, the newspapers give information on drama shows, theaters, prize distribution ceremonies, Miss Bangladesh competition, seminars, forming of new associations, cultural clubs etc. Secondly they provide information needed by the immigrants for meaningful integration and participation in the receiving countries. Thirdly, these newspapers also work as avenues for articulating EBs demand to the Bangladesh government. Fourthly, day-to-day politics of Bangladesh takes a huge chunk of these papers. In UK there are two Bengali TV channels and few radio channels.

Four journalists from four newspapers expressed the view of their respective newspapers. Mr. Porimol Palma from the Daily Star expressed that the reporters depend on the sources for news. If the sources are strong in providing information than it becomes easy to get information. Mr. Rabius Shams presented the role of Daily Jai Jai Din which had served last 22 years as weekly and it had published many reports, interviews, articles and as well as experiences relating to Bangladeshi expatriates. Since it started publishing as a daily it reported many news on Diaspora Community’s experience who lives in UK, middle East and rest of the work in general. Mr. Tanvir Sohel also presented the views of Daily Prothom Alo about the diaspora community. He presented a statistics on the news that Prothom Alo has published all these years. Mr. Nazrul Islam, sub-editor, New Age talked about media’s role in presenting diaspora community’s news.

In this programme British High Commissioner HE Mr. Anwar Choudhury was the chief guest. In his presentation he said that the Bangladeshi-origin diaspora in the United Kingdom is also an asset to development in Bangladesh. Hard-working British citizens contribute remittances worth millions of pounds, to Bangladeshi relatives. He also said that people of Bangladeshi origin has also signed in their career. Like the youngest ever London borough mayor is a British Bangladeshi. A female British judge has a Bengali heritage and the youngest British Managing Director of City Corp is also of Bangladeshi origin. Like this countless barristers, doctors, engineers, businessmen and other professionals are also from Britain. One of richest men in Britain is a British Bangladeshi too. He said the Bangladeshi media always presents the diaspora community as victims, isolated, insular group, frozen out from the mainstream society. He said that it is very easy and it is wrong as well.

Students, journalists, representatives from various organisations attended the programme. Mr. Kawsar Chowdhury from Rtv attended the programme. He said that diaspora community is not an isolated group. Newspapers or televisions cannot cover the news of all over Bangladesh other than Dhaka. In consideration to that diaspora is a very small part. Some journalists proposed of a forum of the journalists who would report on migration. Dr. Tasneem lauded that idea and said this kind of forum is better to present the migration news.

Many of the audience put question to the British High Commissioner.