Reliability can help sustain newspapers
Says Mark Tully
Amid multiple challenges emerging from the alternative media, the principles of journalism and reliability can help sustain newspapers, said eminent British journalist Mark Tully. “If you are not reliable, you will lose your readers,” said Tully, who is best known for his reporting during the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971, at a view exchange meeting with the journalists of The Daily Star at its office in Dhaka yesterday. Tully, the former bureau chief of BBC, New Delhi, worked for BBC for 30 years before resigning in July 1994. He covered all major incidents in South Asia, ranging from Indo-Pakistan conflicts, Bhopal gas tragedy, Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi to the demolition of Babri Masjid. He is now working as a freelance journalist and broadcaster based in New Delhi. Tully, who was born in India, and whose mother was born in Bangladesh, was on a personal visit to Bangladesh. The Bangladesh government has recently awarded him for his outstanding role in the liberation war. Talking on the challenges for newspapers, Mark Tully said digital media, internet and blogs are the threats for newspapers. There are also commercial pressures that prompt media to go for sensationalisation, he added. “Also, pressures are there for quicker news, short cuts, but that often puts you in trouble,” he said adding that open source information like that of the blogs is not authenticated. “Reliability of newspapers is widely known, and respected,” said the award-winning journalist adding that old-fashioned principles of journalism are more important. He said it is of utmost importance that “you check the facts.” The Daily Star Editor and Publisher Mahfuz Anam and senior journalists of the daily were present at the meeting.
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