A delegation of four journalists of Rajshahi and Dinajpur districts of Bangladesh and Director of knowledge centre CCD Bangladesh completed their UK visit very successfully and effectively.

Knowledge centre CCD Bangladesh arranged this tour for obtaining practical knowledge and experience about journalism practice and media management prevailing in Europe. The delegation team included Editor of the daily Natun Provat Sarder Abdur Rahman and Executive Editor of the daily Sonali Sangbad Molazzem Hossain Sachchu from Rajshahi, Executive Editor of the daily Ajker Protiva Abu Sayeed Mohammad Kumar and Joint Editor of the daily Potralap Shyamol Kumar Ghosh from Dinajpur. Director of CCD Bangladesh G M Mourtoza coordinated the visit.

The delegation team visited the offices of the important media houses of England including the daily Guardian, the daily Financial Express, the daily Sunday, the daily Independent, KM Messenger Group, BBC, Press Association (PA) and Thomson REUTERS in England and attended views exchange meetings with senior officials and journalists there during their trip supported by the European Union. Through this visit and meetings, members of the delegation team obtained extensive knowledge and experience on media management, marketing policies, news gathering and news processing techniques prevailing in Europe.

Moreover, they also visited offices of some international development organizations including HealthLink Worldwide, PANOS London, Open Society Foundation-London, BBC World Service Trust and attending views exchange meetings with the higher officials there requested them to extend their activities to Bangladesh.

They met some renowned teachers of Media and Journalism Department of Goldsmith University of London. They also took part in a seminar arranged by Media and Journalism Department of this university.

During the visit, Bangladeshi journalists attended views exchange meeting with journalists of all Bangla newspapers and television channels of London and members of London Bangla Press Club. The Bangladeshi journalists working in London hailed the initiative of visiting UK from the newspapers published from outside Dhaka and expressed their interest to visit the newspapers published from the northern region of Bangladesh. Besides that the delegation visited the offices of Bangla Weekly Janamat, Bangla Post, Bangla Radio of London and London office of Channel I.

The journalist’s team visited prominent business houses and business owners of UK such as VeeTee Grop. They also meet with the renowned rise businessmen and chairmen of the VeeTee Group Mr. Moni Varma and Marketing Manager of the group Mr. Gill Russell and requested them to invest in Bangladesh on rice and agricultural sector. The team also visited the big automatic rice mill and observed the procedure of rice producing and packaging.

The delegation team also visited English Parliament and Westminster and became acquainted with the British political history and activities of House of Lords and House of Commons. They also visited different historical sculptures and places including Buckingham Palace, Greenwich Watch, London Eyes, Tower Barge, West Minster Abbey and British Museum.

Consultant of the Thomson Foundation of UK and Professor of Media Department of City University of London Bardhen Martin, Youth Ambassador of CCD and student of Media and Journalism Department of Goldsmith University of London A S M Anisur Rahman Litu, London Correspondent of Channel I Faysal Chowdhury and Editor of Bangla Post published from London Barrister Tareq Chowdhury provided all out assistance to the delegation of journalists to make their visit fruitful, significant and a success.

Media Owners' Visit Europe to gathering Knowledge

The local papers can play more significant role in creating and building a public opinion and in conducting media advocacy on different social and economic issues than the national newspapers, radio and television. Besides that the coverage of local trade, commerce and business oriented news is much more in local paper than in the national newspapers, so the local papers can create much more influence in creating public opinion than the national ones. But it was earlier said that the local newspapers couldn't play proper role in trade and economic promotion due to their having no knowledge, skill and experience in this respect. Under this project it will be attempted to make the local newspapers one of the assisting forces in promoting local trade, commerce and economic activities of the area. Through this project, thus the local papers and journalists will be inspired to institutionalize the economic reporting and to promote trade, commerce and business activities in the local level. Simultaneously through this project, these newspapers will be encouraged to highlight the role of EU in developing economic and commerce related activities in Bangladesh and the EU facilities provided to the country.

In order to create an opportunity for the six editors of the local and regional newspapers to acquire the knowledge and experience of the trend, style, form and type of the economic reporting prevailing in England and to follow the acquired norms and regulations in economic and trade reporting after coming back home, it has been attempted to arrange a visit of the editors of 6 newspapers to England. This visit will extend the opportunity for the visiting editors to know about the practicing economic and trade journalism in England and then they will be able to maintain the obtained ethics and norms of economic reporting to institutionalize this special form of journalism at home. One of the main objectives of the EU project is to pave the way of utilizing the system and ways followed in the EU countries for the development of the local trade, commerce and business in Bangladesh. This UK visit of the editors will be helpful and closely related to the main goals and objectives of the project of EU.

[Last Updated on 07 October, 2008]