Talk:Prothom Alo

A fact from Prothom Alo appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 26 September 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that an edition of Alpin, a supplement of the Bangladeshi newspaper Prothom Alo, was banned by the caretaker government for publishing a controversial cartoon in relation to the Islamic prophet Muhammad?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/September.

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Journalism

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Media

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Wrong uses of Reference

in this article i find some of the reference and cite is misused! many of the criticism related reference used from the Local Language related news site.--Aashaa (talk) 19:14, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

i also know that Saiyara04 (talk) 14:27, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This needs a heap of work

Because at the moment it is just copypasta combined with advertising. I think this article should focus more on an encyclopedic point of view. IllogicMink ^{talk about it} 07:44, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Broad sheet

Hi! Broad sheet is used in the infobox to specify the newspaper format. The problem is this newspaper format article does not exist end Broad sheet is currently a redirection to broad sheet glass which has obviously nothing to do with newspaper. Could you fix that? Pamputt (talk) 17:05, 30 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Issue with the previous image of PA's cover

The infobox cover image was using Prothom Alo's issue from 2021(!) which featured tribute to former PM Sheikh Hasina on her birthday. Being the most powerful political leader at that time in Bangladesh, it was customary for not only Prothom Alo but also any other newspaper to show tribute on her birthday. The infobox cover image, added only few days ago, was certain to create or, at least, had the potential to spark further controversy as after Sheikh Hasina's ouster Prothom Alo is already facing some sort of debates on its previous role in Bangladesh's socio-historic background and thus addition of the image certainly does not reflect NPOV. Bengali Wikipedia, on the other hand, uses a more neutral image, the cover of the first issue of the newspaper, which is also a common practise for enwiki in Featured Articles. Therefore, I am changing the infobox cover image from somewhat random (or I was told not to speculate) issue to the first issue of the newspaper. — Meghmollar2017 (U T C) — 09:05, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Meghmollar2017: Wikipedia is not the place to express personal opinions. For more information, see WP:UNCENSORED. The identities of Sheikh Hasina and Prothom Alo are not relevant to Wikipedia’s policies, particularly WP:NPOV. There is no established rule requiring the use of the first issue in the infobox. The current cover image is clearer and more up-to-date than the one from 27 years ago. Therefore, I have restored the previous image. Please do not change it again without citing an appropriate guideline. Thanks.–𝐎𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐬 𝐀𝐥 𝐐𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢 ʕʘ̅͜ʘ̅ʔ 13:40, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Owais Al Qarni: You are correct, Wikipedia is not the place to express personal opinions. The problem is that choosing, as the infobox image, the cover of an issue paying a birthday tribute to the most powerful political figure in the country at the time, fails to maintain a neutral point of view. Choosing that image can convey various (conflicting) non-neutral opinions, for example that:

Sheikh Hasina is a great and wonderful leader deserving of glorification
Prothom Alo is a shallow, sycophantic tabloid that cravenly kowtows to authoritarians
This is typical Prothom Alo coverage
This is an important story, perhaps the most important one Prothom Alo has ever published

You may not be trying to push any of these points of view, but if you believe the image is neutral, and doesn't place a thumb on the scale in portraying what Prothom Alo (or Sheikh Hasina) is like, then it shouldn't matter to you which of the potentially thousands of other possible cover pages is used in the infobox.

The clarity of the images is in the eye of the beholder. Neither is high resolution, and as non-free images, they should not be very clear. The first cover is clear enough to read that their top story was about a case backlog at the Supreme Court, and that also above the fold were images of the leaders of the country's three major parties. "Up-to-date" is generally a poor criteria for selecting a newspaper's infobox image. Today's cover is more up-to-date than your 2021 one. Tomorrow's will be more up-to-date than today's, and so on. Updates would be endless.

The common practice in featured articles about periodicals is to use an image of the front page of the first issue (c.f. Illustrated Daily News, Sunderland Echo, The True Record, and The Yankee). Doing so is a sensible and pragmatic convention that avoids endless edit-warring among editors who want their favorite cover image used. --Worldbruce (talk) 15:33, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bengali-language or English-language?

@Meghmollar2017 You wrote in the edit summary that this is not an English-language newspaper. But I can see both Bengali and English languages here.

Somajyoti ✉ 18:08, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Somajyoti, Yes, they have an English-language news portal. But is the "newspaper" published in English? No. The Daily Star, The Business Standard, etc., have Bengali-language news portals. Does it make them Bengali-language newspapers? — Meghmollar2017 (U T C) — 18:42, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I did some searching for a while.

I found that currently, the printed edition of Prothom Alo is published only in the Bengali language. Copies of the printed edition are available online at the subdomain epaper.prothomalo.com.

They also publish news separately in article format on their websites prothomalo.com and en.prothomalo.com in Bengali and English respectively. The English site en.prothomalo.com is fully active, with new news being added every minute.

So, I can say that the printed edition of Prothom Alo is currently published only in Bengali, while the online version is published in both Bengali and English.

In other words, overall, Prothom Alo is published in both Bengali and English. Somajyoti ✉ 19:06, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Somajyoti, I think I could not make myself clear. The printed newspaper is printed only in Bengali; therefore, it is solely a Bengali-language newspaper. Publishing news in English language on web portals does make it an English-language news portal, but not an English-language newspaper. — Meghmollar2017 (U T C) — 20:10, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

the point is this article refers to Prothom Alo as including the daily printed edition published by Prothom Alo (newspaper per U), their web portal (news portal), as well as all their other publications and this article, Prothom Alo encompasses all of them. So Prothom Alo (all) is published in both Bengali and English. Somajyoti ✉ 20:28, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Somajyoti, the category you added was Category:English-language newspapers published in Bangladesh. I see no problem adding any English-language/bilingual category other than that of newspapers as per your point of view. — Meghmollar2017 (U T C) — 20:48, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]