Quotes of the Week

Wilmington statement on closure of Press Gazette: "Unfortunately Press Gazette, along with much of the profession, has suffered from a declining market during these years and its losses have increased. We have therefore been forced to conclude that the market required to sustain a commercially viable Press Gazette magazine no longer exists."

Neil Thackray, former publisher of Press Gazette: "There is not enough independent comment on the media. I told Dominic Ponsford, the last editor of PG, that his job was one of the toughest in media. He made a great fist of producing a readable magazine about journalism on very limited resources. His boss, Les Kelly, whom I also know well, is nothing if not a realist. We probably shouldn’t be sentimental about PG and Les is paid a salary not to be. But even when this is the right commercial judgement for Wilmington, my own view is that the fourth estate is the worse for the passing of the title."

Michael Kinsey of the Washington Post on newspaper managers: "The typical newspaper executive is a bear of little brain. Until recently, little brain was needed. Even now, to say the newspaper industry has no problems that a busload of geniuses couldn't solve is essentially saying that the industry's problems are insoluable. Or at least insoluable without help."

Rod Liddle dosen't spare David Hepworth and Mark Ellen in a letter to their magazine, The Word: "(Re Rod Liddle's inclusion in a A Long Way On A Little, Word 74) Made much out of nothing have I? Better than having made NOTHING out of nothing, you bunch of middle-class public school cunts. Still wish you were in a rock band, do you? Wish it was Steely Fucking Dan? So not a rock band, then; an anti-rock band. Grow up, Hepworth and Ellen. Write something interesting about anything. Just once."