Friday 28 May 2010

Quotes of the Week: From a Duchess to a King

Roy Greenslade blogs on the News of the World's Fergie sting: "As for the subterfuge itself, I have said many times that the method is not necessarily the problem. It should be used sparingly and only when no other way could be found to obtain a story of real public interest. I cannot imagine that the NoW could have got the Duchess to have owned up to her duplicity by any other means."

Stephen Glover in the Independent: "In normal life nice people do not try to entrap one another. It is sneaky and underhand. But journalists for these purposes are not particularly nice people and neither, often, are the people they entrap."

Philip Knightley also in the Independent: "So why do newspapers do it? Going undercover is considered glamorous. Acting a role that exposes wrongdoing or greedy and bad behaviour attracts some journalists, particularly those seeking to become the heroes of their own stories. But above all, at a time of falling circulations and editorial financial restrictions it is a comparatively cheap form of journalism with a quick result."

Simon
Waldman, Guardian Media Group's former director of digital strateg
y and development, warns at JEEcamp: "It's not about paywalls it's about how you succeed in the advertising market. The challenge is in the ad market . There is a danger in becoming fixated about paywalls."

News International's commercial managing director Paul Hayes,
at Haymarket Brand Media's Big Media Debate, on The Times' paywall: "If it doesn't work then I'm in the shit."

Stewart Kirkpatrick editor of Scotland's online newspaper, the Caledonian Mercury, at JEEcamp: "There's never been a better time to be a journalist. And there's never been a worse time to work as one."

The Independent's online editor Martin King on why the paper is stopping anonymous postings: "Websites have been encouraging cowardice. They allow users to hide behind virtual anonymity to make hasty, ill-researched and often intemperate comments regardless of any consideration for personal hurt or corporate damage. If you are speaking up, then speak up proudly and with responsibility. Embrace this opportunity to come out from the cloak of anonymity."

  • Vintage quote of the week. Ben Bradlee, the celebrated editor of the Washington Post, as reprised by Philip Knightley in the Independent: "In a day when we are spending thousands of man-hours uncovering deception, we simply cannot afford to deceive."

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