Quotes of the Week: From the Sun's shame over Hillsborough to going drinking with Caitlin Moran

 

Dominic Mohan, editor of the Sun, apologises for its infamous 'The Truth' Hillsborough front page: ''Twenty-three years ago The Sun newspaper made a terrible mistake. We published an inaccurate and offensive story about the events at Hillsborough. We said it was the truth - it wasn't. The Hillsborough Independent Panel has now established what really happened that day. It's an appalling story and at the heart of it are the police's attempts to smear Liverpool fans. It's a version of events that 23 years ago The Sun went along with and for that we're deeply ashamed and profoundly sorry. We've co-operated fully with the Hillsborough Independent Panel.'' 

Sun editorial: "THE Sun’s reporting of the Hillsborough tragedy 23 years ago is without doubt the blackest day in this newspaper’s history... The people of Liverpool may never forgive us for the injustice we did them.  All we can do is offer them an unreserved and heartfelt apology that is profound, sincere and unambiguous." 

Kelvin MacKenzie in a statement, as reported by the Daily Telegraph:  "It has taken more than two decades, 400,000 documents and a two-year inquiry to discover to my horror that it would have been far more accurate had I written the headline The Lies rather than The Truth. I published in good faith and I am sorry that it was so wrong."   

AA Gill in the Sunday Times [£]: "The undoubted winner of both Olympic and Paralympic Games has been Clare Balding, now the go-to PE teacher to the nation. Taking advantage of the transfer window, she was loaned to Channel 4 and has managed to repeat her earlier success on the BBC, leaving all the other contenders, including that bloke who does the crisps ads, tossing in her spume."

Peter Preston in the Observer: "The arguments for letting the PCC and Lord Hunt get on with reform are pragmatic as well as political. The arguments for calling in parliament's draftsmen are neither."

Charlie Brooks interviewed in the Sunday Times [£]: “It was March, first day of the Cheltenham Festival. Baby asleep. Eighteen of them [police]. They came running up the stairs shouting their heads off. It felt like a very over-the-top operation. The nanny was totally traumatised.”

 Ray Snoddy in an article in the new edition of  the book 'The Phone-Hacking Scandal: Journalism On Trial', as reported on Roy Greenslade's blog: "Save in one respect – dealing with illegal phone hacking – the PCC is not a failed organisation. It is one that has worked tirelessly to get fast free redress for those who have been subject to inaccurate or intrusive reporting without reasonable cause and a strong case can be made that, on the whole, press behaviour has improved over the past 20 years."

Johnston Press chief executive Ashley Highfield in memo to staff, as reported by HoldTheFrontPage: “A key finding from the first phase was that we need to do even more to improve our content – particularly where we are increasing cover prices – so each editor is being asked to provide a content improvement plan that will serve as a blueprint for their relaunch. We also need to think about what types of content will help us reach new audiences – a big focus for relaunch – while keeping our heartland readers happy. We need more research to understand what content people would look for if they’re to become regular purchasers.”

Caitlin Moran (above) looks back at her 20 years on The Times [£]: "When I started here, in 1992, I was an overexcitable, chain-smoking 18-year-old who wouldn’t rise until 5pm, and who just wanted to write lots of jokes, and earn enough money to never have to move back to Wolverhampton, where I was aware there were only two employment possibilities that lay open to a working-class girl with no GCSEs or A levels – either, a) working the cheese counter at Gateway supermarket, Warstones Drive, or b) becoming a prostitute."

Time Out journalist Alexi Duggins after interviewing Caitlin Moran for three hours in a pub: "My stomach can take no more. After three hours of talking to Caitlin Moran, my gag reflex jerks violently, my abdomen pulsates like something out of ‘Alien’ and I decorate a toilet with my gastric lining. The walls pirouette madly, the floor leaps up to smack me in the face and everything goes black. Interview over."

[£] = Paywall .