With the demise of Financial Express Editor Moazzem Hossain, Bangladesh has lost a great professional journalist, who served the country’s print media for about four decades.
Before he fell ill and was taken to Singapore for treatment more than a month ago, he had been glued to his desk toiling more than 16 hours a day, only to publish the daily with important financial news on business, corporate and banking sectors.
The Financial Express under his leadership also used to give equal importance to political and sports news. Moazzem Hossain who was fondly called Moazzem Bhai by his colleagues used to take care all segments and pages of the newspaper.
He was fond of editing copies of reporters and op-ed contributors for which he used to work for two sessions daily. He had a strong news sense and he could guide the relevant reporters to bring out scoops, the trend the newspaper is likely to continue due to the expertise, which Moazzem Bhai has introduced.
The veteran journalist, aged 73, was the publisher of the English financial daily on behalf of its owning company, International Publications Limited (IPL), in which he was also the Managing Director.
I came to his acquaintance in late 1980s and relations grew over the years. When I became a victim of ‘cost cutting’ in Reuters on my 12th year of service in the Dhaka Bureau of the global multi-media news agency in 2011, he made me to join his newspaper as Special Correspondent on the following day when I met him to seek a job.
I found the working atmosphere was friendly and encouraging. It has been a house without any grouping among employees, who were gentle and cooperative .
However, after serving his newspaper for two and a half year I left the esteemed newspaper on a trifling professional dispute.
With his demise we have lost a great friend and patron of journalism.