When I was a student of Mass Communication & Journalism of Dhaka University, one day in a reporting class one of our teachers said, "Objectivity is a bogus term. There is nothing called objectivity in the world." He wanted to explain to us that any event first starts to lose its objectivity from the hand of a reporter who covers the happening. Every mass medium in the world has a set policy (highly motivated by politics), ideology, mission and vision. So every journalist, every gateman (a person in a mass medium who finalises the report after getting it from a reporter, widely known as sub-editor) and the whole authority related with news and other programmes both in electronic and print media work keeping this policy in their brain. Apart from this, nowadays electronic and print media are being launched to operate political, cultural and ideological campaigns and to save their black money. So how can we expect objective news from such kind of media? As a conscious newspaper reader and TV viewer I know how the same event is being published and telecast in different ways, expressing different and motivated meaning in different newspapers and TV channels. I can mention here a lot of examples from home and abroad in this regard, but here I will take two recently telecast events by two world famous TV news channels-- the BBC and CNN. One event is Hurricane Katrina of the United States of America from where the CNN is being run. Another is oil depot explosions of the United Kingdom from where the BB operates. We will see here how CNN covered the Hurricane Katrina which occurred in their own country and how they covered the oil depot explosions which happened in the UK. In the same way we could also see how the BBC treated the Hurricane Katrina which did not occur in their own country and how they broadcast the oil depot explosions which occurred in their own country. Though oil depot explosions are far less significant compared to Hurricane Katrina, but nonetheless it will not be difficult for us to find out how the event was portrayed in different ways in the above mentioned two TV channels. Everybody knows that the US and the UK are strong allies of each other, specially on fight against terrorism but nonetheless both the TV channels do not miss the chances to portray elaborately if they find any negative aspect of the other country. Hurricane Katrina was one of the biggest natural disastrous in the US history. We cannot but give thanks to BBC for their bold and elaborate coverage of Hurricane Katrina. The post- Hurricane scene had a wide-angle , deep and long term impact on economy, lives, environment and market. Even the market of some poor countries in the world was upset at that time. Besides this the United States faced great difficulties to manage the situation smoothly. Widespread criticism was raised for mismanagement, discrimination against the black community and indifference of the authorities. We have seen BBC covering all these issues with boldness. At the same time we saw CNN busy with showing rescue operations, relief distribution, President Bush's visit to the affected areas, pumping of water outside the city etc.Now come to the UK oil depot explosions. It took place before dawn on 11 December at the oil field depot near the town of Hemel Hempasted, around 25 miles northwest of London. The depot, which distributes aviation fuel to airports in the London area, is a joint venture between the British arm of a French oil company and part of US oil giant Chevron Texaco. The depot was also used by British Petroleum, Shell and the British Pipeline Agency. CNN dubbed it the biggest ever industrial fire in the history of Europe and BBC described it the biggest industrial fire in the fifty years of UK history. Interestingly, we found here that CNN was very serious about telecasting everything live. The BBC also telecast some of the impacts of the explosions but their main focus was limited to informing the viewers that such a thing had happened.
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