Media Quotes of the Week: From bullying in the media to is Twitter a 'left-wing electronic mob' ?

Stanistreet: 'Dreams shattered by bullying'

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, on bullying in the media: "It has been heart-breaking to deal with members whose dreams have been shattered because of the behaviour of their managers and of failure of employers to tackle bullying and bullies. I have heard testimonies from members who said, 'News editors threw reporters on to the same story, everyone was terrified of putting a foot wrong. People were put under such pressure. Reporters were effectively encouraged to shaft each other. It was such a demoralising situation' and from women journalists who had been offered promotion in return for having sex with their boss."

Roy Greenslade on his MediaGuardian blog on bullying: "Outsiders may wonder why adults put up with the MacKenzies and Dacres. The obvious answer is that they control people's livelihoods. It is a case of accepting it or getting out (and not "getting in" anywhere else). For too brief a period in the 1970s, the National Union of Journalists exercised enough power to save the jobs of those who dared to buck the system by standing up to the bullies. But the NUJ, having lost its fight to create closed shops, gradually lost its potency. And there is still not much constraint on the autocratic rule of popular paper editors."

Local World chief David Montgomery's vision for the future of local papers, as reported by Press Gazette: "On the smaller weekly titles a single individual, Content Manager, will skim largely online published content to create the newspaper in a single session or small number of sessions rather than a number of staff following a laborious and time-consuming schedule spanning many days of the week. On daily papers only a handful of Content Managers will be office bound and will orchestrate all products across the platforms." 

Grey Cardigan on TheSpinAlley: "While this is terrible news for Local World’s employees – despite several years of shedding talent, still some of the best in the business – it could well be good news for those just waiting in the wings for the big groups to get fed up with these troublesome regional titles and start returning them to local ownership where they truly belong. And all those redundant hacks launching proper, hyperlocal news websites must be rubbing their hands with glee. Monty’s pursuit of this Holy Grail is deluded, dangerous and desperately unfair on those who have carved out successful careers in our trade."

The International New York Times in a leader: "The global debate now taking place about intelligence agencies collecting information on the phone calls, emails and Internet use of private citizens owes much to The Guardian’s intrepid journalism. In a free society, the price for printing uncomfortable truths should not be parliamentary and criminal inquisition."

Frank La Rue, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, on the political reaction to revelations about secret surveillance programmes, as reported by the Guardian: "I have been absolutely shocked about the way the Guardian has been treated, from the idea of prosecution to the fact that some members of parliament even called it treason. I think that is unacceptable in a democratic society."

Raymond Snoddy ‏@RaymondSnoddy on Twitter: "Mail often criticised, correctly, for nastiness but another big campaign win - old media persuades new media to think again on child porn."

Patrick Smith of BuzzFeed: Patrick Smith ‏@psmith on Twitter: "Re: 'cat pictures', B2B journalism tends to just have 'pictures of middle aged white men in suits' so it's nice to be a bit creative."

Daniel Radcliffe on Sky News: "I don’t have Twitter and I don’t have Facebook and I think that makes things a lot easier. If you go on Twitter and tell everybody what you’re doing moment to and then claim you want a private life, then no one is going to take that request seriously."

Steve Dyson in InPublishing looks at the regional press in 10 years time: “Of the 78 dailies currently remaining, more than 30 sell less than 20,000 a day and will go weekly – or close – in the next five years; a similar number – perhaps more – will convert by 2023. The industry will mainly consist of two types of weekly publisher: regional ‘giants’ with shared online platforms; and local start-ups and buy-outs with hyperlocal blogging websites. The likes of Newsquest, Johnston Press, Newsquest, Trinity Mirror and Local World  will have changed out of all recognition, and will halve in number. The two that remain, along with the larger family firms, will publish fat, cat-killing weeklies covering cosmopolitan cities, large towns and urban counties where there are still enough readers and advertisers wanting regular and unique local insight in print.”

Darren Parkin commenting on HoldTheFrontPage: "One of the biggest problems facing newspaper groups right now is that the current decision-makers are hanging on to pensions and retirement plans that cash in before digital completely takes over. So why would they bother hastening the demise of something they understand over something they don’t? Too many newspaper boardrooms are filled with docile fifty-somethings who simply will not step aside and let the younger talent set the pace and the agenda for the future."

Peter Hitchens , in a letter to the Independent: "Twitter is a left-wing electronic mob, and I visit it only to promote my Mail on Sunday blog, and to respond to and correct the ignorant attacks that are sometimes made on me there. This activity is like unblocking the sink: necessary, disagreeable – but satisfying when you succeed and positively enjoyable when you hear the waste gurgling away down the drain."