Friday 12 August 2011

Quotes of the week: From throwing bricks at frontline reporters to sending them love letters

: "As I pulled up by Salford precinct, I was greeted by crowds of young people - some as young as 10 or 11. Seconds later cars screeched by as young boys pulled wheelies on motorbikes. Within minutes of leaving my car and standing by BBC Radio Manchester's radio-car, bricks were hurled at myself and a colleague. We took cover by the empty markets...Gangs cheered as the radio-car went up in flames."

Unemployedhack blog: "Journalists are finally being shown in a good light. The reporters, just days ago dismissed as 'scum', are now celebrated as they report on, photograph and film riots across London and the UK. Someone even mentioned that reporters are on low pay while they respond to early morning calls to report on and film burning cars, looted shops and the smashed windows along high streets."

The Committee to Protect Journalists' executive director Joel Simon: "We are very concerned that the social unrest has spread to aggression against journalists. News organisations must take precautions, but we hope demonstrators recognize that it is in the public interest for journalists, as independent observers, to witness and report the facts."

Online video journalist Adam Westbrook on his blog: "Twitter being used by journalists, who (hopefully!) question sources and try to verify, is one thing. But non-journalists aren’t necessarily as skeptical of information. A rumour to a journalist could be read as fact by someone else, especially people who are scared."

Neil Thackray on TheMediaBriefing: The newspaper industry seems to be in denial about the extent of the crisis it faces. It is in danger of looking like Michael Fish the night before the big storm in 1987...When readers are losing faith in the integrity of what newspapers do, and shareholders are losing faith in the future of newspapers, when the economy is teetering on the edge of a double dip recession, when technology change is challenging the very essence of how newspapers do business, the conditions for a perfect storm are arising."

Nick Davies tells the Cutline blog he may be making a move to the US: "The Guardian have asked me to join a group of journalists who they are sending from London to the U.S. to increase our coverage of U.S. stories. So, apart from looking at the hacking story here, the other purpose of the trip is to make decisions about exactly where I would be based if I were to come here. I'm still exploring that, too."

Piers Morgan in the Mail on Sunday on Jon Snow being duped by a tweet from a fake Twitter account claiming Morgan had beeen suspended by CNN: "When I was fired from the Mirror for publishing allegedly fake photos of British troops abusing Iraqis (nobody’s ever proved for a fact either way what those pictures were, incidentally), Mr Snow was one of the most censorious of my critics for me allowing myself to be so dreadfully duped. Not as difficult as you thought, is it Snowy?"

Bryony Gordon sends a love letter to a Sky News reporter via her Telegraph column: "Mark Stone, beefcake, hunk, my hero. A Sky News reporter who makes Buzz Lightyear look like Postman Pat, a breath of broadcasting fresh air after hours of Identikit aerial shots from the ubiquitous Skycopter. This chiselled god of news fearlessly took to the streets of Clapham on Monday night to confront the feral youths rampaging through his local branch of Currys Digital."

No comments: