United News of Bangladesh

The Washington Post is laying off nearly 100 employees, representing 4% of its staff, in a bid to curb mounting losses.  The cuts primarily target workers on the business side of the renowned US newspaper, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.  The publication is among numerous news outlets facing challenges in the digital era, as online platforms increasingly compete for advertising revenue.  The layoffs come amid internal turbulence, following Bezos’ unprecedented decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the US presidential election in November.  "The Washington Post is continuing its transformation to meet the needs of the industry," a spokesperson for the newspaper said. "Changes across our business functions are all in service of our greater goal to best position The Post for the future."  Amazon to donate $1 million to Trump inauguration In 2023, the Washington Post reported a $77 million loss and a decline in website readership. That same year, it announced voluntary buyouts in an effort to reduce staff by 10%.  Bezos wrote an opinion piece explaining that blocking the endorsement was necessary because of growing public perception that the "media is biased." Still, the newspaper said 250,000 of its readers cancelled their subscriptions in protest. Several prominent journalists have since left the publication, including investigative reporter Josh Dawsey, who confirmed on X that he is joining The Wall Street Journal. Managing editor Matea Gold has also departed, moving to The New York Times.  The situation escalated further on Saturday when Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned after the newspaper declined to publish satirical cartoon depicting Bezos and other tycoons kneeling before a statue of President-elect Donald Trump.  Last month, Bezos announced that Amazon would donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and make a $1 million in-kind contribution. He also described Trump’s re-election as "an extraordinary political comeback" and dined with him at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.    Source: with inputs from BBC

A cartoonist has decided to quit her job at the Washington Post after an editor rejected her sketch of the newspaper's owner and other media executives bowing before President-elect Donald Trump. Ann Telnaes posted a message Friday on the online platform Substack saying that she drew a cartoon showing a group of media executives bowing before Trump while offering him bags of money, including Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Telnaes wrote that the cartoon was intended to criticize “billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump." Several executives, Bezos among them, have been spotted at Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago. She accused them of having lucrative government contracts and working to eliminate regulations. Telnaes said that she's never before had a cartoon rejected because of its inherent messaging and that such a move is dangerous for a free press. “As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable," Telnaes wrote. "For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I'm just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’” Read: Woman quits job to look after husband because 'men should be spoilt by their wives'  The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists issued a statement Saturday accusing the Post of “political cowardice" and asking other cartoonists to post Telnaes' sketch with the hashtag #StandWithAnn in a show of solidarity. “Tyranny ends at pen point,” the association said. “It thrives in the dark, and the Washington Post simply closed its eyes and gave in like a punch-drunk boxer.” The Post's communications director, Liza Pluto, provided The Associated Press on Saturday with a statement from David Shipley, the newspaper's editorial page editor. Shipley said in the statement that he disagrees with Telnaes' “interpretation of events.” He said he decided to nix the cartoon because the paper had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and was set to publish another. “Not every editorial judgement is a reflection of a malign force. ... The only bias was against repetition," Shipley said.

Bangladesh's Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud on Tuesday (January 30, 2024) said what appeared on Washington Post regarding Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus was an advertisement, not a statement.  “Washington Post published it as an advertisement. That is an advertisement, not news. Clearly, it was done by a lobbyist firm,” he told reporters while responding to a question.  The Foreign Minister said the lobbyist firm also did the same in the past.  Read: Festivals like DIFF enhance country’s image globally: Dr Hasan Mahmud  He said Bangladesh’s judiciary is transparent and the government is not a party to Yunus’ case. Dr Hasan said the aggrieved people of Yunus’ organization filed the case and the trial is underway in a very transparent way. Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus on Sunday claimed that it was the government, not the workers of his company, who filed the labor law violation case against him. When his attention was drawn to the claim, the Foreign Minister on Monday said, “With due respect to him, I would like to say that what he said is not correct.” The minister said that the aggrieved workers of Yunus’ company filed the case as they were deprived of what they deserve. Read: Sheikh Hasina’s leadership is needed for a developed Bangladesh: Dr Hasan Mahmud More than 241 global leaders, including more than 125 Nobel laureates, expressed their concern over the “continuous judicial harassment and potential jailing” of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus in a third open letter to Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. On January 1, 2024, Professor Yunus and three Grameen Telecom colleagues were convicted of labor law violations, sentenced to six months in jail, and given bail while appeals are considered. 

The renowned US news outlet Washington Post has lauded Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for her bold leadership on the global stage alongside Bangladesh’s impressive progress in women’s empowerment and achievements in education and poverty reduction. In a refreshing approach, it has also provided glimpses of Sheikh Hasina’s lighter side. The Washington Post article was published yesterday and written by Petula Dvorak — a columnist for the newspaper. The article mentions that the PM celebrated her 76th birthday with her son Sajeeb Wazed Joy and her 16-year-old granddaughter, who live in a suburb just outside Washington DC. Read From the Editor-in-Chief: In the pantheon of leaders, Sheikh Hasina stands taller each year “I cook for them,” Hasina said. “Chicken biryani … At my son’s house, I have my own kitchen that’s just for me.” Dvorak interviewed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at Ritz-Carlton in north Virginia, where she was staying after attending the UNGA in New York. Highlighting the Bangladesh PM’s success stories, Dvorak wrote, Sheikh Hasina is the longest-serving female head of government in the world. The article said, the Prime Minister is leading a nation with more people than Russia and survived at least 20 assassination attempts, including a particularly bloody grenade attack in 2004. Read Chinese Minister Liu greets Hasina on her 76th birthday Referring to a man named Abdullah Niami, the writer said, he raised his 6-year-old daughter Zoya up high as he wanted her to see Sheikh Hasina — a female head of government which “America won’t see anytime soon”. The article also highlighted that Sheikh Hasina is upholding the legacy of Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu, as the nation’s Prime Minister for four terms, totaling 18 years so far. At the UN General Assembly, it said, the Prime Minister asked for help with accommodating more than a million Rohingya refugees who fled the violence in Myanmar and settled in Bangladesh camps. Dvorak quoted Sheikh Hasina as saying that camp life is not good and the Rohingyas want to return to their country. Read Hasina and Friends: Interactive gaming platform to educate children Her nation’s migrant situation cannot be compared with America’s, she said, adding that the United States is a vast country with lots of land and opportunities to work. Sheikh Hasina said, Bangladesh ranks as No. 8 in the world in terms of population, with more than 171 million people, but its size is close to that of Wisconsin in the US. The article also highly appreciated the Sheikh Hasina government’s zero-tolerance approach to domestic terrorism. The writer pointed out the “Despite Being a Women” meme featuring Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Read PM Hasina reaches London on the way back home In response, the PM laughingly noted: sometimes “women are better than men”. “Being a woman”, the Prime Minister said, she understands the struggles related to poverty in Bangladesh, the obstacles that most women face, and how their non-inclusion stalls a nation’s progress. In the past decade, her government significantly reduced poverty in the country, expanded educational opportunities and improved housing, she said. The Petula Dvorak's article quoted the World Bank that gives high marks for growth in Bangladesh under Sheikh Hasina’s leadership, noting it went from “being one of the poorest nations at birth in 1971” to reaching “lower-middle income status in 2015.” Read Sheikh Hasina: A legend in her own lifetime

The Washington Post won the Pulitzer Prize in public service journalism Monday for its coverage of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, an attack on democracy that was a shocking start to a tumultuous year that also saw the end of the United States’ longest war, in Afghanistan. The Post’s extensive reporting, published in a sophisticated interactive series, found numerous problems and failures in political systems and security before, during and after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot in the newspaper’s own backyard. The “compellingly told and vividly presented account" gave the public “a thorough and unflinching understanding of one of the nation’s darkest days," said Marjorie Miller, administrator of the prizes, in announcing the award. Five Getty Images photographers were awarded one of the two prizes in breaking news photography for their coverage of the riot. The other prize awarded in breaking news photography went to Los Angeles Times correspondent and photographer Marcus Yam, for work related to the fall of Kabul. The U.S. pullout and resurrection of the Taliban’s grip on Afghanistan permeated across categories, with The New York Times winning in the international reporting category for reporting challenging official accounts of civilian deaths from U.S. airstrikes in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Also read: Slain photographer in Afghanistan among Pulitzer winners The Pulitzer Prizes, administered by Columbia University and considered the most prestigious in American journalism, recognize work in 15 journalism categories and seven arts categories. This year’s awards, which were livestreamed, honored work produced in 2021. The winner of the public service award receives a gold medal, while winners of each of the other categories get $15,000. The intersection of health, safety and infrastructure played a prominent role among the winning projects. The Tampa Bay Times won the investigative reporting award for “Poisoned,” its in-depth look into a polluting lead factory. The Miami Herald took the breaking news award for its work covering the deadly Surfside condo tower collapse, while The Better Government Association and the Chicago Tribune won the local reporting award for “Deadly Fires, Broken Promises,” the watchdog and newspaper’s examination of a lack of enforcement of fire safety standards. “As a newsroom, we poured our hearts into the breaking news and the ongoing daily coverage, and subsequent investigative coverage, of the Champlain Towers South condominium collapse story,” The Miami Herald's executive editor, Monica Richardson, wrote in a statement. “It was our story to tell because the people and the families in Surfside who were impacted by this unthinkable tragedy are a part of our community.” Elsewhere in Florida, Tampa Bay Times' editor and vice president Mark Katches mirrored that sentiment, calling his newspaper's win “a testament to the importance of a vital local newsroom like the Times.” Also read: Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian photojournalist killed in Afghanistan The prize for explanatory reporting went to Quanta Magazine, with the board highlighting the work of Natalie Wolchover, for a long-form piece about the James Webb space telescope, a $10 billion engineering effort to gain a better understanding about the origins of the universe. The New York Times also won in the national reporting category, for a project looking at police traffic stops that ended in fatalities, and Salamishah Tillet, a contributing critic-at-large at the Times, won the criticism award. A story that used graphics in comic form to tell the story of Zumrat Dawut, a Uyghur woman who said she was persecuted and detained by the Chinese government as part of systemic abuses against her community, brought the illustrated reporting and commentary prize to Fahmida Azim, Anthony Del Col, Josh Adams and Walt Hickey of Insider. Jennifer Senior of The Atlantic won the award for feature writing, for a piece marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks through a family's grief. Melinda Henneberger of The Kansas City Star won for commentary, for columns about a retired police detective accused of sexual abuse and those who said they were assaulted calling for justice. The editorial writing prize went to Lisa Falkenberg, Michael Lindenberger, Joe Holley and Luis Carrasco of the Houston Chronicle, for pieces that called for voting reforms and exposed voter suppression tactics. The staffs of Futuro Media and PRX took the audio reporting prize for the profile of a man who had been in prison for 30 years and was re-entering the outside world. The prize for feature photography went to Adnan Abidi, Sanna Irshad Mattoo, Amit Dave and Danish Siddiqui of Reuters for photos of the COVID-19 toll in India. Siddiqui, 38, who won a 2018 Pulitzer in the same category, was killed in Afghanistan in July while documenting fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban. The Pulitzer Prizes also awarded a special citation to journalists of Ukraine, acknowledging their “courage, endurance and commitment” in covering the ongoing Russian invasion that began earlier this year. Last August, the Pulitzer board granted a special citation to Afghan journalists who risked their safety to help produce news stories and images from their own war-torn country.

The “help wanted” list for top management jobs in journalism is suddenly getting very long.

The Washington Post has placed a political reporter on administrative leave after she tweeted a link to a story about rape allegations against NBA superstar Kobe Bryant, who was killed Sunday. Dozens of journalists at the newspaper criticized the decision.