absolute cruel and brutal day at HuffPost. I am speechless

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/300249260/new-owner-buzzfeed-lays-off-45-from-huffpost-newsroom

Buzzfeed announced Tuesday (local time) that it has laid off 45 reporters, editors and producers from the newly acquired HuffPost.

HuffPost Executive Editor Hillary Frey, the website’s executive editor, and Executive Editor Louise Roug also resigned over the layoffs, Buzzfeed said.

The dismissals come just three weeks after Buzzfeed acquired HuffPost, the media outlet founded in 2005 as The Huffington Post, from Verizon Media.

“We never got a fair shot to prove our worth,” the HuffPost union said in a statement.

HuffPost Canada will be shut down under the restructuring.

The union said the layoffs included nearly 30 per cent of its membership.

“We are devastated and infuriated, particularly after an exhausting year of covering a pandemic and working from home," the union's statement said.

Many of the laid off employees were lamenting losing their jobs on social media after stints of many years, and objected to the way they were told, saying the password for entering the remote meeting was a variation of “spring is here,” making them blindsided by what would come later.

Reporter Rowaida Abdelaziz called it “an absolute cruel and brutal day at HuffPost. I am speechless.”

https://www.natlawreview.com/article/biden-administration-continues-actions-aimed-addressing-and-advancing-racial-and

As a follow up to the Inauguration Day recession of former President Trump’s Combatting Race and Sex Stereotyping Executive Order, the Biden Administration has issued a White House Diversity memo providing further direction on rolling back any remaining tenants of Executive Order 13950.

In addition to reversing the Executive Order, the White House is taking the affirmative step of establishing a White House Gender Policy Council. By Executive Order signed March 8, 2021, President Biden has directed the creation of the council to establish and pursue a comprehensive approach to ensure that the Federal Government is working to advance equal rights and opportunities, regardless of gender or gender identity.

In recognizing that “advancing gender equity and equality is a matter of human rights, justice, and fairness” as well as “a strategic imperative that reduces poverty and promotes economic growth, increases access to education, improves health outcomes, advances political stability, and fosters democracy”, the administration believes “the full participation of all people — including women and girls — across all aspects of our society is essential to the economic well-being, health, and security of our Nation and of the world.” The Gender Policy Council has a multi-faceted list of responsibilities and will involve cross-Agency participation and representation.

And President Biden is calling for quick action. Within 200 days, the Council is ordered to develop and submit to the President a “government-wide strategy for advancing gender equity and equality in the United States.”

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/03/08/executive-order-on-establishment-of-the-white-house-gender-policy-council/