This is neither in reference to nor in defence of any story or report. This is in defence of a fundamental principle of journalism and one of its core values. We feel that no media organisation should be banned and journalists should never demand it regardless of poor quality of reporting, errors of facts, judgments and interpretations. Whatever may be a particular report's flaws, that can only be countered by better reporting, stronger logic, irrefutable facts and more authentic storytelling, but never by demanding a ban—which amounts to weakening the very foundation of independent journalism and is akin to demanding to cut the root of a tree on whose branch one is sitting. There is, and can be, only one answer to "yellow journalism", and that is ethical and objective journalism. Correct the mistakes and put the wrongdoers to shame. That is how good journalism wins over bad journalism.

Many wondered why the US and western media houses gave such coverage to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden when the latter's aim was the destruction of the US and the West. They published every word he uttered and countered his propaganda by more fact-based reports, not by banning or ignoring them. Even for ISIS, whose beheading of The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl constituted one of the most inhuman treatments meted out to a journalist, that held true. It is not to say that Western media has no flaws or biases. They have plenty and the response to that is practicing better journalism than them.

Journalism's founding ethos is freedom of expression and freedom of speech. Can there be any freedom if we place a qualifier that says, yes you are free to speak whatever you wish but I will have to like it. If I don't, then I will not let you speak. Can any form of freedom exist under such circumstances?

The question could be about quality of journalism. One can feel very strongly about being wronged, discredited, maligned and even lied about. For a journalist, this makes it all the more important that the response must come from better journalism.

We are aware that "tarnishing the image of the country" is something that all governments accuse the independent media of—and Bangladesh is no exception. But should journalists buy into that and become a part of the fray? Bangladesh itself provides the best answer here.

For years, if not decades, we in Bangladesh, including a part of our media (depending on which party was in power at the time), cried ourselves hoarse that the international media was deliberately and relentlessly maligning us. Then Bangladesh started to perform and facts proved the critics wrong and the narrative automatically started to change. Our economy grew, as did the per capita income, first to USD 1,000, and it is now almost USD 2,000. Our average GDP growth rate has been 6.5 percent for the last 11 years. Now institutions like World Bank, ADB and IMF recognise us as being among successful countries, including global banks like Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC, two of the world's biggest. Performance is the best and only answer to critics including the media.

We hope to enter the club of developed countries in the near future. With it, inevitably, will come new demands from us, including that of greater tolerance for dissent and critical media reports. Let us gather strength in the confidence that we are mature and strong enough to live with media reports many may find biased, "yellow" and motivated. Such reports, if not true, will never touch us.

Finally, banning never works. It never did, not certainly in the digital age, and rather brings unnecessary criticism to our country. If anything, banning only increases curiosity, interest and readership.