Staff Reporter:
Information and Broadcasting Adviser Md Mahfuj Alam yesterday expressed his optimism that the ‘Journalist Protection Act’ will be enacted soon aimed at safeguarding the rights of journalists.
“I received 18 draft versions of the law and recommended presenting them to the cabinet,” he said while speaking as the guest of honor at an informative dialogue session titled “Dialogue on Self-Regulation and Grievance in Media: Political and Policy Perspectives” at the CIRDAP auditorium in the city said yesterday.
The Centre for Governance Studies (CGS) hosted the dialogue to discuss reforms related to the mass media.
Consulting Editor of the Daily Star and former Head of the Media Reform Commission Kamal Ahmed also attended the dialogue as the guest of honor.
As part of media reform, Mahfuj Alam proposed merging BTV and Bangladesh Betar into an autono-mous entity. But, he said, complications have arisen due to staff coordination and stakeholder influence.
While media house owners have benefited from increased advertising rates, he said, the actual benefits for journalists remain questionable. “What are journalists really getting? The owners don’t have an an-swer,” he stated.
During his tenure, he said, no media house was shut down, but 72-75 journalists faced harassment, and he is working with the ministry to resolve those issues.
Other guests were Professor S. M. Shameem Reza of Department of MC&J, University of Dhaka; Dr. Moudud Hossain Alamgir Pavel, Convener, BNP Media Cell; Dr. Shakhawat Hossain Sayantha, General Secretary, G-9; Advocate Ahsanul Mahboob Zubair, Assistant Secretary General and Chief of Media and Publicity Team, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami; Abdullah Kafi Ratan, General Secretary, Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB); Nazmul Haque Prodhan, General Secretary, Bangladesh Samajtantrik Dal- Bang-ladesh JaSad; Advocate Subrata Chowdhury, Executive President, Gonoforum; Nasreen Sultana Mily, Joint General Secretary, AB Party; Jubairul Hasan Arif, Chief Joint Organiser of NCP, Coordinator of Chittagong region; Md. Rashed Khan, General Secretary, Gono Odhikar Parishad; Sohrab Hassan, Sen-ior Journalist; M Abdullah, Former Secretary General and President, Bangladesh Federal Union of Jour-nalists (BFUJ); Kazi Jesin, Freelance Journalist; and Zyma Islam, Senior Journalist, The Daily Star.
The session was moderated by the president of CGS, Zillur Rahman.
Emphasizing on reforms, Zillur Rahman noted that although much has been said about reform, the promises made by political parties during the 2007-08 “One-Eleven” period were never implemented.
He pointed out that reform narratives often remain confined to promises, with little effort made to turn the page and act on them.
Kamal Ahmed recommended gathering public opinion and publishing drafts of the “Journalist Protection Act 2025” and the “Media Commission Act” on a website.
Despite submitting the report six months ago, he regretted the delay in implementing the Journalist Pro-tection Ordinance.
Dr S M. Shameem Reza said public trust in the media is declining, yet there is a lack of independent and impartial research on the issue.
“Media houses show reluctance toward conducting research, and due to their Dhaka-centric operations, there is a shortage of monitoring and oversight at the regional level,” he added.
He emphasized the need to assess the quality of good journalism, the absence of political party discus-sions on media reform akin to constitutional reform, and the importance of building a tradition of self-regulation and policy in a democratic society.
Nazmul Haque Prodhan said everyone needs to seriously think about stopping the kind of attacks that follow when someone expresses an opinion on social media.
Advocate Subrata Chowdhury highlighted the presence of moral decay across various sectors of society, particularly among educators and other professional groups.
Abdullah Al Kafi Ratan pointed out that most media houses yesterday are owned by corporate entities.
Due to the commercial pressures exerted by these corporate owners, journalists’ freedom is being com-promised, he added.
Dr. Moudud Hossain Alamgir Pavel shared important views on the role, principles, and responsibilities of the media, saying that, like every profession, journalism has its own set of ethics and risks.
