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People's Right to Know

It is the media's job to scrutinise every aspect of a public figure's past and present and inform the public about it without prejudice and malice.

MAHFUZ ANAM
The Daily Star's masthead announces our motto every morning -"Committed to People's Right to Know"- to the world, and we have every intention of living up to what we have promised our readers. Journalism without fear or favour is what we preach and practice and we see no reason to renege on that practice now, notwithstanding the direct and indirect attempts to intimidate us that our readers have seen recently.
Mr. Salauddin Quader Chowdhury felt defamed by a certain report of this newspaper and decided to take us to court. Fair enough. As the matter is before the court both sides should have waited for its verdict to find out who is on the wrong. However Mr. Chowdhury, without waiting for the court's verdict has decided to take his case to the public. We say again, fair enough. In TV and newspaper interviews he has accused The Daily Star and the Prothom Alo of indulging in a malicious propaganda against him and of promoting the political agenda of a particular party.
Since Mr. Chowdhury went public, so naturally must we. We think people have a "Right to Know" what our views are about these accusations. Before we proceed we want to underscore that our write up has no reference to the case Mr. Chowdhury has filed and we will confine our comments to the issues raised by him in the press and TV interviews he has given.
Mr. Chowdhury told Channel i, "Some journalists are indulging in 'information terrorism'. It is to protest against information terror
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ism that I have filed this case." In his interview with the daily Ittefaq on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 he said, (we quote the portion that deals with the media, translation ours). "When a political party makes a defamatory statement then the responsibility for that statement must be borne by that party and the person who made it. Similarly responsibility also lies with the newspapers that publish them. I have nothing personal against newspapers or journalists. But just as we politicians are answerable to our electorate similarly newspapers must be answerable to their readers and to the law of the land. But when some journalists and newspapers (he obviously means us and the Prothom Alo since he filed a case only against us) work to carry out agenda of any political party then that fact must be exposed to the public."
We welcome his comments to Ittefaq and find them eminently sensible. Mr. Chowdhury has every right to take us to court, which we respect, and we have every obligation to answer to our readers and to the law of the land, which we acknowledge.
Let us examine what we wrote that made us "information terrorists" and convinced Mr. Chowdhury that we were implementing the 'agenda' of a political party. A letter by no less a person than the general secretary of our biggest opposition party was sent to no less a person than the prime minister of the country, about no less a subject than Bangladesh's candidature for the post of the secretary general of no less an institution than the biggest body of Muslim countries, the OIC.
The first question to ask is "Is this of public interest or not?" More importantly do the people of Bangladesh have the "right to know" what is in that letter? As responsible newspapers are we to report it or not? We thought yes, and so did most newspapers in the country and a private news agency. Some newspapers published the full text of the letter and several others extensive extracts from it. They all did so from the fundamental responsibility of informing the public about what our biggest opposition party has to say to the government of the day about something which has a lot to do with our international standing.
The question therefore is why does Mr. Chowdhury feel defamed only by The Daily Star and the Prothom Alo, when more than several dozen newspapers across the country published the same news? Let us examine what we printed. Our report quotes Mr. Abdul Jalil's letter as saying "he was a controversial man" (which Mr. Chowdhury accepts in his Ittefaq interview) and that "nominating such a person is insulting to the nation as a whole"(an opinion that any citizen, leave alone a political party, has every right to have). The report quotes Jalil as saying "We will visit OIC countries if need be to inform them about his dark past." The report further quotes "You (the prime minister) are aware that Salauddin Quader Chowdhury was suspended from the BNP several times for his indecent behaviour. The Awami League thinks that such a man is unfit for the OIC secretary general's office". As Mr. Chowdhury rightly pointed out that we must be
answerable to our readers, so we urge our readers to read (again) our news item of June 3, 2003 and decide for themselves as to how much "information terrorism" we have indulged in.
The principal point to underscore here is that if democracy is to serve the people then we must be fully informed about the type of person who aspires to lead us. The public and the independent media must subject Mr. Chowdhury to every scrutiny as long as he is in the public domain. He said that he has nothing personal against the media or journalists. We also assure him that we have nothing personal against him. This is evidenced by the frequency of reports that we publish on him, which is very less. His speeches in the parliament get covered on the basis of its newsworthiness. He has been in the media lately because of his comments on women, Bangla culture and Amar Ekushey. His recent coverage by the media came when he became the country's nominee for the OIC post. So where is the "information terrorism" and malicious campaign against him that he accuses The Daily Star and the Prothom Alo of?
The moment he got nominated, the media should have started to examine his credential to gauge whether or not he was the most appropriate nominee of the country. In fact, the media did not do its duty and basically ignored the whole issue. (So did we. We hardly wrote anything about him or his candidature save one piece on a section of BNP's leaders' reaction to the nomination. We failed in our duty, which we will try to correct.) In fact except for his role in '71 which has been raised by a few organisations of known hue nothing much has been written about him. We think people have a right to know his political, business and personal track-record ever since he joined public life and even before. Everything about a public figure falls into the public domain and we, the media, have an obligation to reveal everything about him or her. But we must do so with the highest ethical standards of journalism and never with any malice or prejudice. Our purpose must be- and only be to inform the public, objectively and dispassionately for the sole purpose of judicious decision making.
Can we not recall how many Presidential aspirants in the US had to cut short their dream when the media revealed things from their recent and remote past including personal, business and political scandals. Every nomination to high posts in the US including those in the Supreme Court undergo the most critical scrutiny, including by the media, before being finalised. It is the case in other democracies. The Indian deputy Prime Minister Advani has just been accused of involvement in the Babri Masjid destruction episode by an investigating body. This has not been proved in the court of law yet. So is the Indian media guilty of 'defamation' for publishing that news. The Indian media continuously wrote about his involvement over the last several years. Were they indulging in "information terrorism" against Advani?
Take the case of Gujrat's Chief Minister Modi. Every credible and
renowned Indian media directly linked him to the riots and relentlessly pursued him for his communal actions. Yet he has won a resounding electoral victory. So should the media stop holding him responsible for the thousands of people his party and his henchmen had killed. Was the media wrong to go after Modi now that he has won an election? No, and Modi continues to be so accused. Winning elections cannot be used as a protection for past crimes.
We recall that it was first the Thai media that revealed stories of wrong doing by their PM which led to the most intense investigation of any sitting PM in Thai history. His carrier almost came to an end till he was exonerated. Was the Thai media wrong to subject their elected Prime Minister to such a public scrutiny? Has the media been accused of 'information terrorism' against him or accused of defamation and taken to court? No because Thai people had a "Right to Know" about their PM's stock deals and the media had an obligation to reveal all the facts, many of which were not flattering to the Prime Minister, even though he was exonerated later.
One of the issues that our politicians never face is about tax. How much do they pay in relation to what they earn? We hardly ever write about the business that our politicians run and about the money they make and the tax they pay. A litmus test of public figure anywhere is tax payment, a test that our politicians never have to face, and we in the media never write about.
It was tax and related corruption issues that led the Italian Prime Minister to court the other day. These charges came to surface due to media coverage, which were later investigated by the police. When the US media came out with the fact that presidential aspirant George W. Bush had serious drinking problem as a young man were they indulging in 'information terrorism' or trying to defame him?
They did what we are trying to do here-inform the public about a man who aspired to represent them. We think we owe to the citizens not only of Bangladesh but of all OIC member countries about what sort of a man we are proposing to lead the sole political institution of Muslim countries.
We conclude with what we started. "People's Right to Know" must be upheld in every aspect of our public life. Our leaders must become used to public scrutiny and should make their lives transparent to the people they claim to lead. They must become used to the fact that this is the age of accountability and that media will become bolder and 'nosy' about everything they do. They will have to give that 'space' to the media. We in the media, on the other hand, must ensure that we are never motivated by malice, prejudice or any intention other than public good and democracy. We in The Daily Star never are, and never will be.