Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury has rubbished Prothom Alo’s clarification over her charge of misleading coverage, telling Parliament on Wednesday that ‘even the clarification is not based on truth’.
She said that Prothom Alo’s claims that the government had not contacted the newspaper while investigating their story is not correct.
On Wednesday, she produced a list of telephone calls made to the Prothom Alo journalist.
Refuting the minister’s charge on Tuesday, Prothom Alo ran a story that said that its Jhenaidhah correspondent was standing by his story and that no government representative had called on him to verify the veracity of facts in his report.
Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, Matia Chowdhury had said that government investigations into a report run by the newspaper on May 27 found no truth.
The minister made the statement under Rule 300, which does not allow supplementary question to be asked.
The daily had carried the report claiming ruling Awami League leaders and activists had pocketed a major share of the subsidy for power tillers.
It prompted the commissioning of an enquiry committee drawn from officials of several ministries, Chowdhury said.
“It is a false claim that their reporter was not contacted by the enquiry committee. Now one wonders what more they will report, but I am not afraid of facing the truth,” Matia Chowdhury told the parliament.
File Photo
She said the Jhenaidah correspondent of Prothom Alo was contacted over phone.
“Here is the call list, Joint Secretary Abdul Woudud of Agriculture Ministry had called the journalist on his mobile 0171-1286323 on 2nd June at 6.48pm. When another call was made at 8.30pm, journalist Azad Rahman said he was very busy and going home. “
Matia said that anyone could make a mistake. “But it is very much against the standard journalism practice to write false reports, present false news just because you have the pen.”
The agriculture minister told the parliament on Tuesday that the enquiry committee had investigated the allegations raised by the newspaper’s report on 27 May but found no truth in them.
Source: Bd news24
