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Media's writing competency

October 21, 2010 00:00:00


A correspondent's report on the subject matter, was published in the pages of a local English daily on 16th October, where it was stated that Prof. A.A.Sayeed of Bishow Shaayesto Kendro talked about the lack of capability of newspersons in writing English correctly with respect to both grammar and composition.
I too agree with his views, based on my regular reading of four English dailies of Dhaka, practically from the first to the last page; as well as their weekly magazines and other English weeklies published locally. I expressed my opinion about this, on the re-launch of 'The Independent', which was published in their issue of October 12th. Considering the report, there too was an example of incorrect expression. In the fourth paragraph of the report, the sentence should have been a 'to' between "He suggested" and "the club"! The clause should have been as follows: " He suggested 'to' the club authorities... etc." If you take the time to read through the pages line by line; you may come across a dozen or so, of such types of errors, in almost all dailies! More basic errors in grammar and composition can also be found; aside from the occasional 'printer's devil'.
In my opinion, the National Press Club could take up some initiative in this matter, by organizing discussions on the subject, using copies of the local daily English newspapers, for providing examples of such errors.
This could possibly help the reporters to improve their English grammar and composition skills in a pragmatic manner.
Engr. S.A.Mansoor
Dhaka.

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