Media Quotes of the Week: From Sun journalists 'like' BBC shock to Will Carling tackles Greg Dyke

BBC Press Office responds to Sun's 'scandal of BBC paying greedy MPs' story: "We’re glad the Sun enjoys holding the BBC to account and challenging us – it keeps us on our toes and makes sure the licence fee is well spent. We know that deep down Sun journalists like the BBC as well – that’s why they’re happy to be paid to contribute to some of our programmes as well."

Nick Ferrari to Steve Hedley, assistant general secretary to the RMT union, on LBC: "Your vile and abusive stance means I never wish to speak to you again. And in my eyes, you have diminished the case of your colleague immeasurably. For you, as an Assistant General Secretary, you need some form of media training. Goodbye."

Polly Toynbee in an appeal to readers in the Guardian: "The Guardian’s life has always been precarious because we don’t have an owner or a corporation propping us up. We don’t have a press baron or oligarch ordering us to take their political or commercial line. We swim alone in a dangerous world of media sharks, our independence precious and unique."

John Rentoul in the Independent: "Ed Miliband genuinely believes that he can win the election by taking on big companies that are household names, including the ones that own Tory newspapers. As far as I can tell, he is almost alone in this."

MP Philip Davies in the House of Commons, as reported by Press Gazette: “The Attorney-General made it clear that funding is an issue and that discussions are going on with the Chancellor. Given that, is it sensible for the Crown Prosecution Service to commit millions of pounds to a retrial of journalists from The Sun when there is clearly no realistic prospect of conviction?

Channel 4's Alex Thomson on his blog: "People should want to be journalists because of anger. And when I see anger I give real encouragement. And guess what – they actually do pay you a bit, enough, to go out and expose wrongdoing, and that feeling is a hell of a lot better than money or drugs or anything else for that matter."

Trevor Trimm in the Guardian :"The complicit British media (with only a few exceptions) refused to cover the GCHQ story at all unless they were called in to act as public relations agencies for the government by printing fear-mongering stories claiming that anyone reporting on the issue of privacy was just helping terrorists and pedophiles."

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet on Newsquest charging students £120 to have their work published: "While Newsquest is sacking professional staff on its titles, it is charging journalist students for writing articles for them. The unpaid intern has become the scourge of the media profession - now Newsquest is asking for journalist students to actually pay for a by-line.

Sir Robert Francis: Pic ITV News

Daily Mail on Sir Robert Francis' review of whistleblowers in the NHS: "There is one shameful omission from his review. While it calls for safeguards for staff who air their disquiet within the NHS, it makes no mention of those who do so in public through the media."

Culture secretary Sajid Javid, quoted by the Daily Mail: "Journalism is not terrorism...I was shocked. In Paris we saw terrorists attacking the fundamental freedoms of the media, so I was appalled to discover that legislation created to hamper terrorists was now being used to undermine those very same freedoms."

Croydon Advertiser reporter Gareth Davies who lost an appeal against a harassment notice served on him by the Met Police for trying to interview a fraudster: "So, in contacting a criminal at her home on one occasion then sending her two emails over the space of a fortnight, I had 'gone beyond a reasonable course of conduct'. If that were true then every journalist in the country should be given an harassment warning."

Former England rugby captain Will Carling on Greg Dyke in The Sunday Times using his comment about the RFU being '57 farts' [£]: "The comment wasn’t part of the interview, not on camera and I presumed the microphones were off. His was still on.  Greg Dyke damn well knew it was not for public consumption. It wasn’t on camera. I was foolish to have said it in range of a microphone but ethically, I don’t think it was right to put that comment out there. He would have thought about it but he decided, ‘To hell with him, this is great for our TV programme.’ ...I thought of Greg Dyke, ‘you sneaky git’. And when Greg went on to become director-general of the BBC, I thought the morals of journalism were pretty interesting.”

£=Paywall