The High Court (HC) has prohibited television channels to tag its news headlines and segments with sponsors.
The bench of justices Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury and Sashanka Shekhar Sarkar gave the order on Monday (May 6) after hearing a writ petition.
The court said “We want to watch credible news on television. If the news is broadcasted with sponsors then it loses credibility.”
“Nowadays we get to see the news presenters saying ‘this bank business news, that hospital health news’. The court has banned these and instructed all the television channels to comply with the order from Sept 1,” Barrister Masud Ahmed Sayeed, who moved the writ, told newsmen.
Back in 2011, schoolteacher MA Matin filed the writ saying such ‘sponsored headlines and news segments’ questions the credibility of the news.
Later, the HC issued a rule on the matter and disposed of the matter with the order on Monday.