Khasru Bhai, guru of financial journalism

https://dailyasianage.com/news/136311/khasru-bhai-guru-of-financial-journalism

EDEN BUILDING TO STOCK EXCHANGE Published: 12:55 AM, 19 August 2018

Khasru Bhai, guru of financial journalism M S Siddiqui

Known for his professional commitment, AHM Moazzem Hossain, the deceased editor of daily Financial Express (FE), was born on 1st January 1948 to the couple Late Ayub Ali and late Rezia Khatun of Feni District. He was known by the nick name 'Khasru' among the close friends and relatives.

He did his BA (Honours) and MA in in Economics from Dhaka University. He is regarded as the guru of financial journalism, economic analysis and idea generation in this field. He was specialised in economic reporting that he never gave up until he became the editor of the FE.Earlier he worked for The Pakistan Observer, The Morning Sun, The New Nation, United News of Bangladesh, The Dhaka Courier and The Daily Star.

Apart from the editor, he was a member of the management board of the Press Institute of Bangladesh and a member of the Board of Directors of the Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha. He was the founding president of the Economic Reporters Forum in 1992.

He was a member of the Board of Directors of Janata Bank, for two consecutive terms. He was also a director of Securities Trading Company Limited, a subsidiary the Investment Corporation of Bangladesh. He was also an independent director of Bay Leasing and Investment Ltd. He was also an independent director of the Southeast Bank Limited. On completion of his education in the late 1960s, Moazzem Bhai served the Habib Bank Limited as an officer in the Training and Research Department. He also worked as a research officer in the Ministry of Finance of the Government of Pakistan in Islamabad.

He was involved with The Daily FE since its inception in November 1992 and in due course became Editor and publisher. This newspaper established a different model of newspaper management and made a difference in terms of presentation and policy. A sheer icon of objective journalism, the publication witnessed a track record of steady growth.

He was careful about quality and two important aspects of Financial Journalism. One is conceptual and another contextual. For financial and business journalists, conceptual priority in respective issues or fields is very important. On the other hand, reporting on stock markets requires fundamental ideas about the listed companies, market capitalization, and price earnings ratio.

Again, for a reporter on banking issues, knowledge about statutory requirement, bank rate, lending rate and its administration and implication including performing and non-performing loans is instrumental. One has to have more practical, field-based knowledge. This is the conceptual aspect.

On the contextual side comes the issue of writing for the readership in a country like Bangladesh where in general fiscal and economic literacy is not yet very good. From that perspective, conditions of various industries inside and outside the country, trading between different nations and so on are pivotal as we are living in an interdependent world. Moreover, developed countries also affect the economic performance of countries like us. Initially, we thought and designed a financial daily keeping in mind about the economic condition of the country.

He had believed that nowadays, the contextual side of things is receiving more prominence.

Nevertheless, for both the aspects, one has to continuously update him or herself with the latest knowledge and changes in technology and the popular trends of global media.

The daily FE came into being in the year of 1992 at a very interesting time. The concept of globalization was gaining momentum around the world. He understood that Bangladesh too would join the bandwagon soon. The country's economy was going to open up to embrace the changes that would take it to new heights. The GATT was replaced by WTO-Marrakech Agreement, which laid the framework of multilateral trading facilities for Bangladesh.

The capital market was at a teething stage. Infrastructures were being built, new cash flows from abroad were wooing local investors to set up heavy industries and Banks were getting more and more dynamic. Citizens of this country needed a better understanding of those changes and reforms. There came the FE to render a deeper understanding of the market and the economy.

This form of journalism was much needed to chronicle the emergence of Bangladesh as an Asian Tiger. With priorities set around issues like development sector, finance and economy. It's a matter of joy and pride that the newspaper has been a solemn witness in the rise of true financial journalism

in this country. The readers of FE regularly updated about the general news from home and abroad that they might find interesting.

His focus was to maintain the basic principle of objective journalism and as far as the policy is concerned, no character assassinations or any malicious reporting would be encouraged. The basic grammar of journalism associated with the five Ws (Who, What, When, Where, Why) have been followed. He was been very meticulous in maintaining a neutral stance which means we do not use political priorities, rather proceed with development news and always been very objectively focused.

He was aware that Bangladesh entered into an era of everything digitalized and understood the need for a virtual platform to connect with your readers. The digital version is now very user friendly.

Even if there's not a competing paper to differentiate itself from, a newspaper has to create a distinctive brand to survive today's ultra-competitive news market. To learn what brand has organically grown up around a newspaper is requires quantitative and qualitative marketing research to determine what audience's strongest perceptions of a publication are. In Bangladesh newspapers have reputation than brand but FE is the exception as it has brand value than reputation. It is up to readers to judge that he have achieved perfection because that is a perpetual exercise as the market determines the course of everything.

Although,the readers are one of the most important stakeholders of a newspaper but it has a challenge of two categories of stakeholders namely owners and the editor. Bangladesh is a place of where print and electronic media is a tool of protecting interest and making image of owner and editor. There are conflict interest of owner and editor and end with many interesting stories. Both the stakeholder tries to take optimum benefit of the media. But FE is a rare exception that both owners and editor had no such endeavour to use the newspaper for their personal gain.

But creating an enduring image for a newspaper is no easy task since this is a product has a shelf life lasting a little past nine o'clock the day after it is printed. Since brand is ultimately formed in the minds of your readers. There are some reputed newspaper subscribed by readers but may not open the pages but the readers of FE use to be serious readers. Brand and reputation aren't the same, but they're related.

The assessment of brand value can be judge by talking to readers to learn what they think of when they think of your newspaper. The sum total of their experiences with a publication, what they think about it, and what they associate it with in their minds is a brand. When readers are more passionate about a newspaper either for good or bad, it means brand is stronger.

There are a few newspapers which are not used by editors for personal branding and get a better place is the society. FE is one of the newspapers wherein owners and editor are not trying to ripe benefit from the media. Whenever the author of this article spoken to the late editor, find a different approaches. Moazzem Bhai always suggests improving the quality of writings with difference inline with philosophy of FE. Moazzem Bhai was always proud that FE could give dividend of around 40% to the shareholders. It has own office premises and also developing building for further expansion. He has a plan to grow very slow and steady and also very careful to talk to the target of volume. He had in mind to improve the quality of the paper with neutral political views and specialisation in reporting. He was against lucrative heading of news or any article. His branding strategy was unique as branding of a newspaper is not an easy task.

This soft spoken editor was not keen to publish news and photo of his presence. He was proud that despite a specialised newspaper for financial sector FE is the second largest newspaper in the

country. He has successfully brand FE keeping himself behind the screen but readers and media world will remember as Guru of Financial Journalism in Bangladesh.

The writer is a legal economist. Email: mssiddiqui2035@gmail.com