Few days back I was browsing internet and reading news in Bangladeshi online news site bdnews24.com. Suddenly an interesting news drew my attention. I saw a headline ‘I want to teach reporting’ with a picture of our Finance Minister Abul Mal Abdul Muhith. I was surprised with the headline. In our field of auditing, preparing financial statements are knows as reporting. This is what popped up in my head when I read the headline. I thought for some reason he is not satisfied with the common practice of financial reporting in Bangladesh and now he wants to change the practice.
I quickly opened the news page. And then I found out Mr. Muhit meant ‘journalism’ by the term reporting. Yet again I thought he loves journalism and wants to be a teacher of journalism after his retirement. But as I finished reading the news, I understood that he was sarcastic to the journalists.
The news reports, Mr. Muhit is upset about the matter that local media are putting much emphasize on the news of foreign news papers. He mentions that local reporters do not believe the words of government when govt. describes about the achievements and developments. However, when a foreign media says the same thing, journalists puts value on that news. And that’s why he wants to teach reporting to the journalists.
I support what Mr. Muhit said. Our journalists don’t believe news from govt. but they believe the same news published in foreign media. I know the reason why journalist do not believe the words of our government or the persons running this country. You see, people who are running this country often make unnecessary words and claims to do some impossible works. For example, one of our minister said “Construction of Padma bridge will be finished before maturity of current government”. Where the reality is there is no change of starting the construction process in the remaining period of this govt. I can come up with thousands of example but I think I should not disrepute our government. As I mentioned earlier, our ministers or the people running this country speaks unbelievable words. Most people do not believe their words at all. Same goes for the journalists. They do not believe the words of govt. So when govt. speaks of development, journalists ignore their words.
I request Mr. Muhit not to teach the journalists who to report. They know how to do it and does it very well. I will request Mr. Muhit to teach his fellow politicians how to speak. When you guys will be able to speak believable words, journalists will listen to you and put value to your words.