Media Quotes of the Week: From press shame to why it's a great time to be a journalism student

Tim Rayment in the Sunday Times' News Review: "There are times when a reporter feels ashamed of his industry. The News of the World is the very newspaper that published Kate McCann’s diaries without asking her and abused and bullied the McCanns — there are no other words for it — into an interview. As time passes, it is more and more clear why James Murdoch, the chairman of News International, abruptly closed the paper in July."

Dominic Lawson in the Sunday Times: "It is frequently said that if you like sausages your stomach will not thank you for discovering how they are made. The tabloids will fear that the Leveson inquiry might have a similar effect on those who avidly consume stories about people’s personal lives. Brian Leveson’s forensic approach is taking the public into the journalistic abattoir to see how the front-page snap of a dazed-looking actress is achieved."

Roy Greenslade argues on his blog that there are "two presses" in Britain: "We have a serious press that operates, broadly, in the public interest. We have a popular press with an agenda based around human interest."

Steve Hewlett in the Guardian: "Of course, not everything the tabloids do is bad – far from it – and we have only heard one side of the story. The editors will get their chance at a later date. It's also true that Leveson (as the judge himself freely admits) is more than slightly cart before horse, as the full story of phone hacking cannot yet be fully inquired into or told because of ongoing civil actions and police investigations. But, after last week, phone hacking is looking less like the disease itself and more like merely a symptom – albeit an especially unpleasant one – of a much more serious and systemic ailment."

Guardian's Nick Davies at the Leveson Inquiry: "I don't think this is an industry that is interested in or capable of self-regulation. The history of the [Press Complaints Commission] undermines the whole concept of self-regulation."

Ex-News of the World journalist Paul McMullan at the Leveson Inquiry: "Privacy is for paedos, no-one else needs it."

Alastair Campbell at the Leveson Inquiry gives his view of the press: "Frankly putrid in many of its elements."

Julian Assange in a More 4 documentary on WikiLeaks: "One of the most extraordinary things about British journalism is that it is the most credit-stealing, credit-whoring, backstabbing industry ever encountered."

Press Gazette editor Dominic Ponsford to City University journalism students: "This is a great time to be a journalism student with the Leveson Inquiry going on, it's like studying history in the middle of the French Revolution."