Reuters has lost its past standards of journalism: Deputy Press Secretary

Mohammad Abul Kalam Azad Majumder, deputy press secretary to the Chief Adviser of the Interim Government, said that Reuters has lost its past standards of journalism.

He said: “This internationally renowned news agency is no longer as reliable as it used to be.”

He posted the status on his verified Facebook profile on Friday.

His status— “I have worked at Reuters for seven years, so I know their editorial style and professional ethics very well.

But it is disappointing that the organization has deviated from the high standards of journalism that it once set. This is becoming increasingly clear, especially in their recent reports on Bangladesh. In the last one and a half years, Reuters has made at least three serious mistakes in its reports on Bangladesh.”

First, they used fake quotes to publish news about the murder of a lawyer.

The deceased was shown as the lawyer of the detained ISKCON leader, which was wrong. Second, the video used in the same report had no connection with the incident mentioned. Later, however, Reuters admitted their mistake, corrected the report and removed the video. But they did not publicly apologize to the people of Bangladesh, although this misleading information created a situation that could lead to riots.

Third, regarding the recent visit of the Chief Adviser to Malaysia, Reuters initially reported that Malaysia and Bangladesh had agreed to jointly send a peacekeeping mission to Myanmar. This was completely false news. Bangladesh did not make any such proposal or agree to it. The matter came only from the side of Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Although the incident was in Kuala Lumpur, the report was made from Dhaka.

I do not believe at all that Reuters has any correspondent or stringer in Kuala Lumpur. When we informed the Reuters editors about this, they quietly corrected the news, but did not explain or apologize for it.

"After seeing such a series of errors, I am beginning to believe that Reuters is no longer carrying the journalistic ideals it once did. Therefore, any of their reports, especially those based solely on email sources and without any real-time images, should now be viewed with suspicion."