DACCA: Sharpening of political and economic issues at home and the increased impact of development in the world have given rise to a new kind of newspaper readers in the country in the post-Independence days, Mr Zahur Hussain Chowdhury, Editor of Bengali daily “Sangbad”, said yesterday [April 29].

He was reading out a paper on new readers at the fourth seminar on the Press under IPI Committee for training in journalism, which was presided over by Mr S.G.M. Badruddin, resident Editor of “Morning News”.

The new class of readers, he said, was becoming increasingly conscious about things at home and abroad, which demanded of the journalists to have thorough, almost scholarly, grasp over a few subjects.

He said our newspapers, though they are trying to keep pace with the modern technique, were still obsessed with politics and journalists preferred to cater for news being influenced with this notion. He observed that the new readership had already shown signs that they would not have things in the old manner — the superficial, crude ways in economic and cultural issues.

Mr Chowdhury stressed on the attitude of seriousness by some newspapers towards life and said that the placid days of over-simplification were over.

Drawing a comparison between the newspapers of pre and post-Independence days, he said that in the first case, newspapers had only one objective — to achieve Pakistan — which was also the mood of the people.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2016