DHAKA, Dec 27, 2024 (BSS) - Chief Adviser's Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam today said the owners of media outlets must provide a minimum basic salary to journalists.

"I am not against the Wage Board for journalists...but a basic minimum salary must be provided to journalists," he told a discussion here.
 
Bangladesh Free Press Initiative arranged the discussion titled 'What kind of media we want' at Jatiya Press Club this evening. 

Speaking as the chief guest, Alam urged the leaders of journalist unions to raise their voices to ensure that journalists get a basic minimum amount of salary from their news outlets.

He said many news outlets pay very poor salaries to their local correspondents, while even many do not give any salary to them. 

If the media owners are not able to provide a basic minimum amount of salary, they should not run their media outlets, he added.

Alam observed that many young people join journalism due to their passion to the profession and then fall in the trap of their owners, resulting in getting poor amount of salary. 

Highlighting the role of journalists in the July-August uprising, the press secretary said the role of journalists in the movement was unprecedented, while seven newsmen were killed.

About the safety of journalists, he said media owners are responsible a little bit for the killing of newsmen in the student-people movement as they did not provide safety gears to them for covering hostile events.

Alam said media owners must provide safety gears to journalists, otherwise they should not run media outlets.

He said ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina must be made accountable in the journalist killings and her journalist cohorts should be brought to justice.

Mentioning that fascism-free journalism must be established in the new Bangladesh, the press secretary said 'Monster Hasina' has run away and now fascism-free journalism should be established so that another monster cannot emerge in the country.

Claiming that some journalists had made Hasina 'monster' and supported her extrajudicial killings, he stressed conducting research on how Hasina became 'a mother of enforced disappearances' and established the 'the rules of stealing' in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh Journalist Welfare Trust managing director Mohammad Abdullah also spoke at the discussion, among others.