Coordination between armed forces and media stressed
Lt Gen Md Mainul Islam, chief of general staff of Bangladesh Army, yesterday said there will be no scope of "misunderstanding" between media and the army if they maintain coordination.
Mainul Islam said, "Every organisation has more or less faults. If there is coordination between what we want and what media demand, there will create no scope of misunderstanding."
He was speaking at a seminar titled "Armed Forces and Mass Media" organised by the Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR) at the Trust Auditorium of the Dhaka Cantonment.
Officials from Army, Navy, Air Force and journalists from different print and electronic media took part in the daylong seminar aimed at developing relationship between media and the armed forces as well as to develop defence journalism.
"We do not want that media would speak in favour of us. Rather, we want that they would speak right things," said Mainul.
He, however, admitted various weaknesses in providing right information on time after any incident takes place. But he said their higher authorities are trying to recover from the "flaws."
Mainul said the army want to utilise the power of media as well as to create coordination among them for the shake of increasing image of the armed forces.
He said, "Many people say that the entire budget fund is taken away by the army. It is an unproductive fund and it has no accountability. But the fund is allocated by the government and I can ensure that the fund of the army is misappropriated very less."
Some army officers at the seminar said journalists should be more careful while writing or broadcasting reports on the armed forces terming it a "sensational sector."
Pointing out various difficulties in getting information from the army and ISPR, journalists at the event mentioned reluctance of the army officials and ISPR authorities to provide information.
Brg Gen Ridwan, Lt Col Abdullah Al Mamun and ISPR Director Shahinul Islam also spoke at the function.
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