Dhaka, Nov. 28 -- Senior BNP leader Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has urged journalists to break free from the clutches of political parties, warning that partisanship has blighted the country's media landscape.

Speaking at the biennial conference of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) at the National Press Club on Friday, the BNP secretary general said: "Mia Golam Porwar [secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami] correctly said that journalists should pay the utmost importance to working with the owners [of media outlets] and the government to realise their demands."

"Simply aligning yourselves with a specific political party won't solve anything. Whether it is an opposition party or the ruling party, it doesn't work. In the l...