Friday, 19 July 2013

Quotes of the Week: Daily Telegraph backed over Huhne and Trimingham prison pics to a reporter's most useful tool in Alan Whicker's World


Press Complaints Commission ruling on complaint against Daily Telegraph by Chris Huhne and Carina Trimingham over prison pics: "While the Commission acknowledged the complainants' position that the publication of the photographs was intended to embarrass them, Mr Huhne's trial, conviction and imprisonment - and the indirect but central role that his relationship with Ms Trimingham had played in the crime's coming to light - had been the subject of wide publicity. [Huhne's] incarceration and the existence of their relationship were already matters well-established in the public domain...neither the photographs nor the articles revealed any additional information about the complainants or their relationship which was intrinsically private. The Commission concluded that the publication of the material did not represent an intrusion into the complainants' private lives. The complaint was not upheld."

Rupert Murdoch in a letter to John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons' culture and media select committee, following leaking of his comments at a meeting with Sun journalists: "Even without a reliable transcript before me, I am sure I made overly emotional comments about the MPS at the March meeting. But the frustration that drove those comments was real, and rooted in the events that have taken place after I appeared before you. This has now gone on for more than two years. Nearly 200 police officers have been involved. They have conducted pre-dawn raids with as many as 14 officers entering journalists' homes in front of terrified families. And most troubling, in many cases the arrests were followed by no charging decision one way or another, for as long as two years. There has been at least one suicide attempt."

Exaro News website: "Media mogul Rupert Murdoch told friends that he feels hurt by the leak of secret recordings of his private comments in a meeting with staff."

The Financial Times in a leader gives its backing to the industry's proposed Independent Press Standards Organisation: "The industry’s proposals are not perfect. Tweaks may be needed as the media landscape changes. The costs and future membership must be defined. But overall they are the best hope of achieving Lord Justice Leveson’s vision."  

Trinity Mirror secretary and legal director Paul Vickers in the Guardian: "Time for a little sunlight. To ensure that the completely new body – Ipso (the independent press standards organisation) – has the trust of the public and those it regulates, we have been insistent that every appointment is made according to public appointment principles of merit, fairness and openness."

Barrister William Irwin in the Guardian: "The Ipso proposals do not address a fundamental problem with the old PCC system. In shorthand, the Desmond Problem. So-called because Richard Desmond – the proprietor of the Express and Star titles – withdrew them from the PCC in 2011."




Rolling Stone defends its controversial cover on Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, via Huff Post: "Our hearts go out to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, and our thoughts are always with them and their families. The cover story we are publishing this week falls within the traditions of journalism and Rolling Stone's long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day. The fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is young, and in the same age group as many of our readers, makes it all the more important for us to examine the complexities of this issue and gain a more complete understanding of how a tragedy like this happens."

Charles Moore in the Telegraph: "In its great scheme of things, the BBC knows how to report clearly defined victims – pensioners cheated by PPI, formerly abused children, 'whistleblowers'. What it cannot understand is the position of the great majority of the people watching it – that they pay tax, and they keep paying more of it. Seldom do they see the story in a tax rise, in energy bills or planning delays, in their own stupefying executive pay-offs. Seldom do they expose the rise in the national debt or investigate why it is that, despite “cuts” every day, government spending still grows bigger all the time. The one entity, in short, in which the BBC feels permanently uninterested is the individual citizen."

J.K. Rowling on her website after being outed by the Sunday Times as the crime writer Robert Galbraith: "I hoped to keep this secret a little longer, because being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience! It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation and pure pleasure to get feedback from publishers and readers under a different name. The upside of being rumbled is that I can publicly thank my editor David Shelley, who has been a true partner in crime, all those people at Little, Brown who have been working so hard on The Cuckoo’s Calling without realising that I wrote it, and the writers and reviewers, both in the newspapers and online, who have been so generous to the novel."

Douglas McCabe, analyst at Enders Analysis, in the Financial Times on the way local papers are using more content provided by readers:  “In a way, it’s just a massive expansion of what used to be the letters page.”

on Twitter: "Sharp drop in Guardian N&M losses as digital revenues soar nearly 30%. Dig gain exceeds print decline."

on Twitter: "Interviewing the high & mighty or the lowly & humble, Alan Whicker once said a reporter's most useful & adaptable tool was - a blazer."

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