Media Quotes of the Week: From Trinity Mirror confirms phone hacking to is Twitter a cry for help?

Trinity Mirror in a statement, reported by BBC News: "The company today confirms that its subsidiary MGN Ltd has admitted liability to four individuals who had sued MGN for alleged interception of their voicemails many years ago. MGN has apologised to those individuals and agreed to pay compensation. The amount of that compensation will be assessed by the court if it cannot be agreed. The company can also confirm that six other voicemail interception claims have already been settled for agreed sums."

Ed Miliband in his speech at the Labour Party Conference: "I care about using the power of government to stand up against powerful forces when we need to do so. It came home to me the other day, when I met Rosie, a doctor from Devon, and she said to me: 'what we need is someone who will stand up for working people, for everyday people, because you will have the power and we won’t.' That’s why I stood up to Rupert Murdoch over phone hacking. That’s why I stood up to the banks over bonuses. That’s why I stood up to the payday lenders over their exploitation of the poorest people in our country. That’s why I stood up to the energy companies over their profits and prices and, yes, it’s why I stood up to the Daily Mail when they said my dad hated Britain because I know my dad loved Britain."

jane martinson ‏@janemartinson on Twitter: "Is the Telegraph being ironic using huge upskirt shot of Emma W on front under header 'Watson's blueprint for equality'?"

James Chapman (Mail) ‏@jameschappers on Twitter: "Guardian refused to attend Salmond's resignation press conference after he barred Mail, Telegraph and Express journalists. Bravo #indyref"

Severin Carrell @severincarrell: "The Guardian declined its place at @AlexSalmond post-#indyref press conference after Scottish govt insisted on picking @guardian reporter."

Rupert Murdoch @rupertmurdoch on Twitter: "Alex Salmond's sudden resignation makes him most honest politician in Britain. Actually he seems to have changed country's future."

alan rusbridger ‏@arusbridger on Twitter: "Ex chief cop sneering at protection of journalist sources on #r4today shows why vital to fight for this right @tnewtondunn"

Deborah Orr in the Guardian: "The Westminster bubble isolates the media as well as politicians. The decline in the regional media over recent decades has contributed hugely to the democratic deficit that the UK now toils under. But devolved politics would mean a devolved media too, and that would be an extremely good thing, in and of itself."

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, on kidnapped journalist John Cantlie: "It is outrageous that a journalist who went to Syria to do his job, reporting on an unfolding crisis and its devastating impact on its citizens, was kidnapped and has been held now for two years. This video, in which John has been forced to deliver a message on behalf of ISIS knowing that his life is on the line is yet another disgraceful and cowardly attempt to target and intimidate reporters from carrying out their work. Its intention is clear, to spread fear and to send a message that journalists – along with other workers –are fair game and mere political pawns to be exploited as their captors see fit."

Hannah Storm, director of the International News Safety Institute, in the Guardian: "This latest video showing John is an appalling attempt by Islamic militants to intimidate journalists like him who take extreme risks, in order to shine light into the darkest recesses of society and document the lives of those whose stories need to be told. As long as his captors are allowed to use him as a pawn in their propaganda, they will continue to send a message that journalists can be manipulated as they see fit. It’s no longer enough, it seems, for the detractors of journalists to be killing the messenger. Now the messenger has become the channel for someone else’s despicable message."

Charles Spencer on how he got his job as theatre critic of the Telegraph: "The first-string theatre critic was the waspishly entertaining Charles Osborne, and he went to review Alan Bennett’s stage adaptation of The Wind in the Willows and didn’t care for it. Unfortunately for him, and miraculously for me, the Telegraph’s then editor, Max Hastings, had loved The Wind in the Willows since childhood and decided that Osborne had to go. Gentle reader, I got my job because Max Hastings loved Ratty, and Moley, Badger and Mr Toad, and Charles Osborne thought they were insufferably twee."

fleetstreetfox ‏@fleetstreetfox on Twitter: "Oh and some div from PR Week thinks I'm a parody account. That's PRs for you, always failing to get the point of what journalists do..."

MailOnline quotes spokesman after Northern Echo Parly correspondent Rob Merrick is injured in a clash with shadow chancellor Ed Balls during a charity football match: "Rob felt a boom and then suddenly he was bust."

Ruby Wax in the Observer about Twitter: "At first, I convinced myself that my Twitter account was for PR and highlighting important mental health issues, scientific breakthroughs and anti-discrimination initiatives. Now I’m just talking about shopping and watering my tree. It’s humiliating. A cry for help."

Media Quotes of the Week: From journalists threatened during Scottish independence referendum campaign to print not dead says FT ed

Protest outside BBC Scotland

Paul Holleran, NUJ Scottish organiser, warning journalists were being threatened and intimidated during the Scottish independence referendum campaign:"People have the right to protest if they believe strongly about an issue, however protesters outside the BBC offices in Glasgow this weekend have demanded that journalists be sacked, for allegedly being biased in favour of the union. Journalists in Edinburgh and Aberdeen were abused over the weekend when simply turning up to report on events organised by both sides. Others were on the receiving end of a range of abuse and intolerance on social media, some of which has been logged and maybe reported to the police."

George Monbiot in the Guardian: "Perhaps the most arresting fact about the Scottish referendum is this: that there is no newspaper – local, regional or national, English or Scottish – that supports independence except the Sunday Herald. The Scots who will vote yes have been almost without representation in the media."

Piers Morgan ‏@piersmorgan on Twitter: "Dear People of Scotland, if you vote NO, I promise to go straight back to America. #indyref"

Nick Cohen in The Observer: "British journalists, the supposed tribunes of the people, now hail from wealthier backgrounds than, er, bankers, an awkward fact that ought to cause embarrassment all round. I look at my younger self today and wonder if he could become a journalist on a serious newspaper. My parents were teachers. They were comfortably off by the standards of 1980s Manchester, but they could never have afforded to rent me rooms in London and cover my expenses while I went from internship to internship."

Shane Richmond @shanerichmond on Twitter: "Nice bit of satire in the Observer, placing Nick Cohen’s column about arts and media nepotism opposite a column by Victoria Coren Mitchell."

Michael Woolf on USA Today on Rupert Murdoch: "His embrace of technology is as uncomfortable as it is enthusiastic. Along with his guileless adoption of Twitter, there was the unexpected sight of Murdoch last week at Apple's new product launch, looking like an over-excited kid. He is, after all, an 83-year-old. What distinguishes him in his technological awkwardness is not a resistance to the new, but a poignant sense of the loss of the old."

Newsnight editor Ian Katz in the London Evening Standard on dealing with Jeremy Paxman: “He’s dyspeptic about pretty much everything. Ideas are flattened. Almost everything you suggest Jeremy will think is ‘preposterous’ or ‘infantile’ or an otherwise ‘completely lamentable’ idea, and that’s a challenge because you have to sell it to him.”

Jeremy Paxman on the Guardian's Comment is Free calls for a ban on open-plan offices: "A masterstroke by the buffoons who commissioned the BBC building was to decree that the ordeal be aggravated by refusing to provide either coathangers or waste bins. Within weeks the place was filthy, reeking with a distinctive aroma of wet coats and feet and ancient pot noodles. At one point there was even a goon patrol to check that no one had personalised their workspace with a potted plant. I have never yet met anyone who likes working in an open-plan office."

News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson in a letter to EU competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia about Google: "The shining vision of Google’s founders has been replaced by a cynical management, which offers advertisers impressively precise data about users and content usage, but has been a platform for piracy and the spread of malicious networks, all while driving more traffic and online advertising dollars to Google."

Diane Foley on CNN: 'I really feel our country let Jim down...he was sacrificed because of a lack of coordination, lack of communication, and a lack of prioritisation.'

From the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's website: "The Bureau of Investigative Journalism is asking a European court to rule on whether UK legislation properly protects journalists’ sources and communications from government scrutiny and mass surveillance. The Bureau’s application was filed with the European Court of Human Rights on Friday. If the court rules in favour of the application it will force the UK government to review regulation around the mass collection of communications data. The action follows concerns about the implications to journalists of some of the revelations that have come out of material leaked by Edward Snowden."

Financial Times editor Lionel Barber in the Guardian: “The newspaper is still a very valuable property. We’ve thought very hard about the future of print and we’ve drawn one or two big conclusions. First of all, anybody who said post-dotcom boom that print is dead is wrong. It’s still a valuable advertising proposition.”

Media Quotes of the Week: From the Sun slams police secret snooping on political editor's mobile phone records to the perfect T-shirt for journalists

The Sun [£] in a leader: "The secret snooping on our political editor Tom Newton Dunn’s mobile phone records by the Metropolitan Police after the ‘Plebgate’ scandal is an outrage…We applaud the Government’s interceptions watchdog for deciding to investigate this scandal. The Met must not get away with it.”

David Banks on the Guardian's Media Blog: "Journalists never betray a confidential source – but now they do not need to, the law will do it for them. The law will do it for them, without their consent, without their argument and without them even knowing about it. That is the chilling truth about the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (Ripa)."

Alan Rusbridger, speaking at the British Library's Benjamin Franklin House Annual Symposium, as reported by Press Gazette: "This whole thing that's supposedly sacred to journalists about confidentiality of sources is in peril. And that requires urgent action by journalists to make sure they understand the technologies that will enable them to communicate."

The Telegraph in a leader on the seizure of Sun political editor Tom Newton Dunn's phone records by police: "The case of Mr Newton Dunn’s phone records is a perfect example of why the industry was right to resist allowing Parliament any stake in the regulation of the press. After all, if the police are prepared to use their powers in such a heavy-handed way, why would Westminster be any more self-disciplined? It is vital that we keep the media free of state intrusion. For a free press is a cornerstone of a democratic society: a critic of vested interests, a voice for the voiceless and a defender of the right to free speech."

The Campaign for the Protection of Journalists launching a petition for the right to report: "Revelations about surveillance, intimidation, and exploitation of the press have raised unsettling questions about whether the U.S. and other Western democracies risk undermining journalists’ ability to report in the digital age. They also give ammunition to repressive governments seeking to tighten restrictions on media and the Internet. When journalists believe they might be targeted by government hackers, pulled into a criminal investigation, or searched and interrogated about their work at the U.S. border, their ability to inform the public erodes. If journalists cannot communicate in confidence with sources, they cannot do their jobs. Join us. Support the right to report."

Rupert Murdoch ‏@rupertmurdoch On Twitter: "Salmond's private polls predict 54-46 Yes. Desperate last ten days ahead for both sides. Most powerful media, BBC, totally biased for No."

Sir Alan Moses, chairman of the Independent Press Standards Organisation, on press victims opposed to the new regulator, quoted in Press Gazette: "Of course they're angry, desperately angry, of course they don't trust IPSO and they regard it as a fake and I'm not at all surprised but I want to show that they're wrong."

Roy Greenslade in the London Evening Standard on Alan Moses: "Ipso’s figurehead, former Appeal Court judge Sir Alan Moses, appears from his public and private statements to be on a collision course with his employers...Hacked Off should be pleased with Moses. In asserting his independence, he gives every appearance of being closer to their position than that of the publishers."

Nick Davies

Stephen Glover in the New Statesman on Nick Davies: "Despite his prowess in unmasking wrongdoing, I see him in many ways as a destructive figure, consumed by unreasonable hatreds, whose motivation was not only to expose malpractice at the NoW but also to weaken much of the British press, in which task he has succeeded pretty well."

Nick Davies responds to Glover on Press Gazette: “Repeatedly, he describes my inner thoughts - my motives, my hatreds, my feelings. This man has never spoken to me. This is pure imagination (and he happens to have got every single claim wrong)."

Tony Gallagher ‏@gallaghereditor on Twitter: "The Independent captures Royal baby mania today."

The Independent: "The Google 'right to be forgotten' ruling is creating a boom time for reputation management PR companies, which are charging clients for having personal information erased from the Internet."

Suzanne Moore in the Guardian:"The Tories have never looked cool, but GQ fixes it so this is one party the A-listers want to be at. That’s quite an achievement. Someone should get an award, a goody bag, a knighthood, a front cover, an exclusive for this exchange. Apparently, even the celebrity sheep found it hard to applaud Blair’s award. But their presence is what they trade in and they have chosen to be part of this joke. GQ calls itself the men’s magazine with IQ. They just don’t mention it’s the IQ of a stunned newt."

Frederic Filloux in an open letter to Ben Horowitz on Monday Note: "BuzzFeed is to journalism what Geraldo is to Walter Cronkite. It sucks. It is built on meanest of readers’ instincts. These endless stream of crass listicles are an insult to the human intelligence and goodness you personify."

PR writing on the Guardian's Media Network: "For every slapdash PR, there’s a journalist who has guzzled so much of their own Kool-Aid they’re metaphorical Augustus Gloops, absorbing the pandering, the flattery, the (oft-misplaced) influence, forgetting that they’re covering an iPhone launch, not reporting from the Gaza strip."

The subeditor ‏@subedited on Twitter: "H&M come out with the perfect T-Shirt for any journalist."

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Media Quotes of the Week: Outrage as police seize Plebgate journalist's phone records, Guardian snubs IPSO, hacked celeb nude pics are 'most read'

Press Gazette:"Journalists’ telephone records were seized in order to track down the whistleblowers who revealed former Government chief whip Andrew Mitchell’s altercation with officers outside 10 Downing Street."

Paul Lewis ‏@PaulLewis on Twitter: "This police surveillance of a journalist isn't just disturbing - it is dangerous. Who else have they been monitoring?"

Jack of Kent ‏@JackofKent on Twitter: "Because of #DRIP Act, Met can now get journalists' email records (gmail, etc) as easily as they got journalist's phone record in #Plebgate....A government which can identify sources of journalists holding it to account “regulates” the media more than anything proposed by Leveson."

lisa o'carroll ‏@lisaocarroll on Twitter: "EVERY journalist should be concerned about this. Scary thing is you would not know if Met got your records already."

Michael Crick ‏@MichaelLCrick on Twitter: "Outrageous that Met Plebgate detectives got hold of Tom Newton Dunn & Sun's phone records without a judge's say-so."

NUJ general secretary, Michelle Stanistreet in a statement: "Instances like this amount to the outrageous criminalisation of sources who have taken the decision that information they are in receipt of deserves to come to the attention of the public. If whistleblowers believe that material they pass to journalists can be accessed in this way – without even the journalists and newspaper knowing about it - they will understandably think twice about making that call."

Committee to Protect Journalists executive director Joel Simon: "Journalists know that covering war is inherently dangerous and that they could get killed in crossfire. But being butchered in front of camera simply for being a reporter is pure barbarism. We condemn in the strongest terms possible the murder of journalist Steven Sotloff. He, like James Foley, went to Syria to tell a story. They were civilians, not representatives of any government. Their murders are war crimes and those who committed them must be brought to justice swiftly."

lyse doucet ‏@bbclysedoucet  on Twitter: "Steven Sotloff - brave reporter who believed there r stories worth taking risks for...could never have imagined horrible risk like this RIP."

The Guardian in a leader: "The Guardian, in common with the majority of what used by be called daily national broadsheet papers in the UK, is not signing up to Ipso at this stage; nor are several magazines or major new media players. This paper will wait to see whether Sir Alan [Moses] succeeds in reforming some of the governance issues that still cause anxiety. In the meantime, we will reinforce our own system of complaints and mediation."

Variety: "George Clooney has come on to direct “Hack Attack” for Sony Pictures, delving into the hot-button topic of celebrity privacy scandals. The pic will be an adaptation of journalist Nick Davies’ account of the British phone hacking scandal surrounding Rupert Murdoch’s news empire."

alan rusbridger ‏@arusbridger on Twitter: "So that's 3 films (Spielberg, Stone, Clooney) & 2 W End plays (Privacy & Gt Britain) out of Guardian journalism. Dramatic."

BBC director general Lord Hall to the Home Affairs Select Committee: "Had the chief constable come to a news editor, head of newsgathering, James Harding, director of news or myself and said to us, 'If you run this story you will hamper this investigation, it would be damaging to this investigation,' we would not have run the story. I want you to be absolutely clear about that. We would not have run the story."

The Daily Telegraph: "Confidential conversations about the raid on Sir Cliff Richard's home between the BBC and police could be made public, under a proposal being made by the corporation. James Harding, director of news and current affairs at the BBC, has written to South Yorkshire Police asking for permission to release emails, text messages and 'off-the-record conversations' between the two organisations."

Theatre critic Charles Spencer on leaving the Daily Telegraph after 25 years: “I have loved my job, but critics shouldn’t go on too long. I feel I’ve had my say and it’s time to stop and put my feet up.”

The Daily Telegraph in a leader on Charles Spencer's retirement: "There are many ingredients to great criticism, but above all it is trustworthiness. Our readers, for a quarter of a century, have known that if Charles says a play is worth the money, it probably is; he has been a truthful voice in a world sometimes too full of artifice. That honesty has not always won him friends (Dame Judi Dench once described him as an 'absolute s---' after a cutting review) but it has won him admirers, and most importantly, the trust of the public. He has a turn of phrase, too: his description of Nicole Kidman as 'pure theatrical Viagra' is famous. But most of all, he has tended to be right. Now he takes a deserved curtain call, and a standing ovation." 

The Media Blog ‏@TheMediaTweets on Twitter: "The Telegraph and Express sports desks have played their 'Costa Bravo' cards very early....Presumably when he doesn't score it will be 'Costa Blank-a' and if he's out with a chest infection 'Costa Coughy'."

NEW YORK, September 4, 2014: "Time Inc. today announced it is rebranding its wholly-owned UK publishing arm IPC Media to Time Inc. UK."

Colin Freeman, chief foreign correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph on freelances trying to cover conflicts with little formal training in journalism:
"Not everyone wants to spend years learning the news trade the way I did, starting on a local paper and writing about parish council reports and garden fetes. What relevance, they ask, does that have to covering wars? The answer, as it happens, is quite a lot. For one thing, it trains your news sense: if you can get make a write-up of the Cleethorpes All-Breeds Dog Show sound interesting, you won't have too many problems finding off-track stories on quiet days in Syria, when noone back in London wants yet another story of bloodshed on the front line. And for another, all news, be it here or in war zones, is about ordinary people and what makes them tick. If you don't find human life that interesting in Cleethorpes, you may not be that sharp a chronicler of it elsewhere."

Grey Cardigan on TheSpinAlley on the continuing fall in print sales for local press: "The one hope on the horizon is that with 22 daily titles now selling fewer than 15,000 copies a day – including those in proper provincial towns like Carlisle, Wigan, Worcester, Swindon, Bolton, Colchester, Ipswich, Oxford, Brighton and Blackpool – the big boys will start shedding these ‘failing’ assets and sell them back to the communities in which they were founded."

Nick Cohen on Standpoint on the regulation on broadcasting to be impartial: "It does not strike me as oppressive that there should be a small corner in the marketplace of ideas where people can go — if they wish — for impartial and accurate journalism. I do not see why we should close it down just because Jon Snow wants to wave his willy at anyone who will look."

Janice Turner in The Times [£] on embattled police and crime commissioner Shaun Wright [£]: "When Andrew Norfolk, of The Times, first questioned him, Mr Wright’s reply was: 'Why are you picking on Rotherham?' A complacent Labour council with an unassailable majority had no reason to grub for the votes of its more marginal citizens."

Sarfraz Manzoor in The Times [£]: "Among other things, Rotherham and Trojan horse and the rise of Islamic State has illustrated the dangers in having an elite that is so white and middle-class. It is these white middle-class commentators who have been busy opining on the British Pakistani community. Their attitude to British Pakistanis is almost exactly the same as that of the British Pakistanis in places like Luton and Birmingham towards white people: they don’t know any, but that doesn’t stop them holding all sorts of crazy views. It’s just another column for them, but for some of us it is so much more."

Sunday Telegraph on new BBC Trust chair

@EverydaySexism ton Twitter: "This wouldn't have been the headline if it was a man! Shame on the telegraph."

Dan Sabbagh ‏@dansabbagh on Twitter: "Rona fairhead very accomplished FD at Pearson, but also the woman who nearly sold the FT. Hope she is more careful with the beeb."

Kevin Maguire ‏@Kevin_Maguire on Twitter: "Most viewed story on Mirror, Telegraph, BBC & Guardian, yes GUARDIAN, is the leak of celeb nude photos #pervalert"

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