Law and legal institutions are omnipresent in Bangladeshi society. So is the media, electronic media in particular. People are involved with the law like it or not. They often complain about legalism. They have developed a mind-set about the functioning of laws. Media plays a role in forming this mind-set. Accordingly, there is an uneasy relationship between law and the media. The law of libel and the social action litigations offer two glaring examples of this uneasy relationship. Legal scholars may write volumes on the legal aspects of the issue. However, to my mind, there is a motion factor in mounting up such a relationship. Let me explain how and why.
There was an age when law could have been traced from the king’s dictum or stone’s inscription. Afterwards, passing through the handwriting era, law entered into the printing age. Printing provided law a kind of continuity and stability in its functioning. … [....]