Basic salary of a journo should be at least Tk 30,000-40,000: Shafiqul Alam

The news organisations who are paying employees less than Tk 30,000-Tk 40,000 as basic salary should be closed, said Chief Adviser's Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam yesterday.

"Journalists should have a minimum basic salary between Tk 30,000 and Tk 40,000. It can't be less. Whoever pays below it should shut their business," he said at a discussion organised by Multimedia Reporters Association at the National Press Club.

He said journalism has become a bloodsucking industry in Bangladesh. There are many instances that the media owners don't pay journalists properly for years.

"There should be a new movement to increase the salaries of journalists," he said.

"Those who do journalism should be given intellectual property rights and rightly evaluated," he said.

Shafiqul Alam said there was no real media freedom in Bangladesh during the regime of Sheikh Hasina and many journalists played fearless journalism.

"If there are fearless journalists in Bangladesh, they are multimedia journalists and photojournalists. Their contribution to this movement is memorable, but they don't get due recognition," he said.

Those who are very close to the owners or the editors get good salaries, and most other journalists don't get a fair salary. In some cases, it is even between Tk 5,000 and Tk 10,000 a month, he said.

"In the cases of journalists in the countryside, they get very small amount of salary. You are using their videos and earning out of them, but not paying even Tk 500 to them," he said.

Shafiqul Alam said journalists do hazardous job. A few journalists were martyred during the July uprising and a few dozens were injured. They are considered conscience of the society but are not paid properly.

Many of the owners paying poorly to the journalists speak aloud as civil society members Dhaka, which he said, is an irony.

Journalists come to the profession for their passion, but the owners exploit that, he said.

He advocated a movement anew, and blamed the journalist unions for failure, saying that RMG workers are not as educated as journalists are, but they are far better in union activism. They fight for their minimum wage, which is great.

"We are considered conscience of the society, but for decades we remain victims of injustice. Yet, we are not raising our voice for our rights."