Refrain from presenting news with personal aspersions

Chief Election Commissioner Dr ATM Shamsul Huda yesterday urged the print and electronic media to refrain from presenting news with personal aspersions on the candidates contesting the forthcoming polls.
“The Election Commission's unanimous word to all the media is that you should not assassinate the personal character of the candidates,” he told reporters at the EC secretariat in reply to a question.
Inquisitive reporters also asked the CEC regarding complains of some leaders of the four-party alliance that some TV channels presenting reports violating the rules and asked for a remedy.
The alliance leaders complained that a private TV channel presented news mentioning Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami leaders as war criminals.
Dr Huda said the commission had a plan to make media code of conduct on election news coverage but this was not implemented for some reasons.
“Now we hope that all media will present the news on factual basis by leaving out rumours,” he said.
Replying to a question, the CEC said the commission would sit with the executives of the news media to ask them to present unbiased news during the election. “We'll talk to the executives in this regard,” he said.