On 11 January, Bangladesh's interim government announced a state of emergency, and a censorship regime was imposed on the country's media. The following day, the editor of the English-language The Daily Star, Mahfuz Anam, declared: "We believe this move to be against the interest of democracy and of Bangladesh. Just as mistakes after mistakes have brought us to this stage of political crisis, the decision of gagging the press is nothing but a continuation of those mistaken decisions." A few days later, Anam wrote an angry editorial about receiving a phone call from an unknown caller giving him "press advice". He promised that his paper would never abdicate its responsibility under such pressure.
Four months later, even after Bangladeshi journalists had been detained by the authorities for their writings, the Daily Star editorial of 8 May was much more conciliatory. On the subject of Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, it read:
Actually, there has been no dearth of commitment on his part to press freedom since he took over, but there are certain parts of the government which didn't seem to act in sync with his ideas. Some organs of the government have proved intrusive, making telephone calls, inviting journalists to talk and giving them advice and directives including issuing media advisory and press notes curbing press freedom.
The contrast in the language used by these two editorials speaks volumes about the Bangladeshi media's precarious position over the last four months. On the one hand, the papers had to deal with the restrictions imposed upon them; on the other hand, they tried to play an activist role for potential political change. This, coupled with the lack of standards and consistency, as well as owners' economic interests, has meant that the media's position has come to be both difficult and confusing. But what has become obvious as the months have passed is an overzealousness to protect and support the current military-backed caretaker government. Given this, Bangladesh's vanguard Bangla and English-language press has lost its credibility – something that may prove costly in the long term.