Now certified journalists
LIKE it or not - the time is coming for us to get certified as journalists.
In an attempt to tighten its grip on mass media the government seems to be driven by a blind ego that's even destroying the rationales behind issuing a certificate. The methodology for the person willing to take up journalism involves taking exams. In doing so, he needs to pass the exam and score the marks to fulfil the criteria, but the process for the ones who are already in the trade to get certified is unknown.
Imagine this scene that a journalist working for a newspaper is incompetent whose standard is not up to the mark yet he is a favourite employee of the editor and the editor recommends for his certificate to the Press Council, which he gets. And also who is going to certify the editor since he is a journalist too?
It's reported that under the amended act, anyone could lodge defamatory cases with the council instead of with regular courts. If that happens then the Council is likely to function like a de facto court. If yellow journalism could have been prevented by a certification method then even better methods exist. Funnily, for issuing the certificates the government had to choose the council that since its inception repeatedly failed to live up to its mandate. What I fail to understand is a remark made by the Council's secretary. He said that the certificates will enhance the quality of mass media. If that is so then why wasn't it introduced earlier and why now? If he believes that a signed, sealed and officially approved paper with grades written on it can improve journalistic practices in Bangladesh then there is little to say.
We live in a country where certificate and degrees define who we pretend to be and not what we actually are. The fear is that the certified journalist is going to operate according to the rules of the authority that will certify him. There are likely to be plenty of them controlling our media. And if that's the case then I am afraid I may have to become a journalist like Christopher Hitchens who became a journalist because he didn't believe in everything that the so-called journalists put out.
The writer is Current Affairs Analyst, The Daily Star.
E-mail: shahriar [email protected]
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