Staff Reporter:
Information and Broadcasting Minister Zahir Uddin Swapon yesterday said in the modern era, any in-formation without data is merely a personal opinion or idea.
“In the absence of accurate data, any public relations or publicity strategy becomes baseless,” he said.
He called upon public relations officers to rely on specific and objective data in preparing any message.
The information minister made the call while speaking as the chief guest at a training program for Public Relations Officers (PROs) of various ministries at the conference room of the Press Information De-partment (PID) yesterday morning.
Addressing the officials, he said, “The current era is the age of accurate data or statistics. It is not possi-ble to determine what you are doing at the field level or how the government’s message is reaching the people based on words of your mouth or perception.”
Swapon said to ensure the acceptability and authenticity of information, there must be accurate data be-hind it.
Any information without data will be seen by society only as an individual’s opinion, which has no insti-tutional or objective value, he said.
If the development and success of each ministry can be presented to the public through data or statistics, the credibility of the information increases manifold, the minister said.
He said data-based publicity can remove confusion and create the right perception or idea in the public mind.
State Minister for Information Yasser Khan Choudhury spoke as a special guest at the event.
Chaired by Chief Information Officer Syed Abdal Ahmed, the event was attended, among others, by Additional Secretary of the ministry Mohammed Yasin.
