Friday, 23 November 2012
Quotes of the Week: From what not to tweet to the dilemma facing David Cameron over Leveson
David Aaronovitch in The Times [£]: "Lastly, the golden rule, the rule of rules. Never, ever tweet anything about anybody that you wouldn’t say to their face. There’s a REASON why you wouldn’t say it to their face. They might hit you, or sue you. So why would you want to tweet it?"
David Banks in the Mirror on the threat by Lord McAlpine's lawyers to sue thousands of Twitter users: "This affair will perhaps show the public the threat libel laws pose to anyone in the UK – a threat journalists face every working day. There is no doubt some famous tweeters will be taking more care about what they say in those 140 little characters."
Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger on Twitter, in the Guardian's Open door column: "People have to understand that when they use Twitter they have the same ethical and legal responsibilities as with any other medium."
Local World chairman David Montgomery, as quoted by Press Gazette: “This is an entirely new type of media business. The value of Local World will lie in its people, its franchises and its IP. It will be unencumbered by the infrastructure of the industrial past such as property, printing presses and large scale distribution or any legacy issues such as high levels of debt. Local World signals the fightback in Britain’s regional media industry.”
NUJ's Barry Fitzpatrick in a statement: “We would also like to warn the managers of Local World that there is no fat left on these titles to cut. Year- on-year cuts to staffing and resources have left very little to trim. These cuts mean that courts are not being covered and councils are not being held to account."
Johnston Press chief executive Ashley Highfield in a staff memo, published by HoldTheFrontPage: “Our mission is straightforward: by 2015 we need to have paid down our debt sufficiently so that we can get the banks off our backs – they are currently rapaciously sucking up all our (not inconsiderable) profits – so that we can build and invest for the future."
Ian Jack in the Guardian on the axing of sub editors and other experienced journalists: "The phenomenon extends beyond the media. Equivalent effects can be felt in government departments, local authorities, hospitals – wherever labour costs have been drastically reduced, jobs outsourced and consultants hired. In this fracturing and fragmenting of old workplaces, more than comradeship is being lost. Error is on the loose."
Boris Johnson, as reported by the Daily Mail: "MPs don't you for a minute think about regulating the Press, which has been free in this country for centuries."
Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times [£]: "What the Daily Mail has uncovered isn’t a conspiracy at all — it’s just the new Establishment: well-heeled, authoritarian, middle-class liberals who, for the most part, have done little more than espouse views agreeable to the salons of Islington and Notting Hill."
Nick Robinson on his BBC blog: "If Leveson recommends any form of new law to regulate the press the prime minister will face an unpalatable choice. Say yes and he will face an angry backlash from most national newspapers and most Conservatives including close allies in the Cabinet. Say no and he will be confronted by a coalition of the victims of phone hacking, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and some Tory MPs."
[£] = paywall.
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