Johnston Press boss Ashley Highfield in the i on the deal withe BBC to pay £8 million a year to fund 150 regional reporters to cover courts and councils: “We believe this will strengthen and enhance local journalism, and the crucial role it has in holding local authorities to account, while maintaining the healthy competition between different news sources which is so important in a democracy.More coverage and content from councils will be more widely distributed ensuring greater accountability and transparency in an ever more devolved Britain.”
Laura Davison, NUJ national organiser, in a statement: "The NUJ believes there is a democratic deficit in local news – the press is not covering the decisions of courts, councils and public bodies in a way which properly informs readers about their democratic institutions. But should it be the licence-fee payer who plugs this gap? Local newspaper groups have a proven track record of cutting staff, merging titles, closing local offices and overstretching the few workers left on the ground just to maintain their profits. What checks are there that these groups will not exploit this licence-fee subsidy in the same way?"
Tom Utley in the Daily Mail: "That's that, then. After all the luvvies’ wailing at the Baftas — and the hysterical claims that the Government was intent on turning the BBC into a ‘North Korea-style’ state broadcaster — Auntie seems to have come through her ten-yearly ordeal of charter renewal pretty much unscathed."
James Naughtie in the Big Issue: "It sounds corny but I remember watching the hot metal plates being put together and hearing the presses roll on my first day at the Aberdeen Press and Journal. It was like watching the Flying Scotsman pulling into a station. I tell my children and it sounds like a story from the Bronze Age. Don't get me started on the state of newspapers today. I find the decline of the printed page really sad."
BBC in a statement: "We are very disappointed that our reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and his team have been deported from North Korea after the government took offence at material he had filed."
Hunter Davies on 20 years as a sports columnist at the New Statesman: "I don’t think anyone in football actually reads the column. In November 1996 I was very disobliging about Gazza, saying he was 'unbalancing the team' and 'throwing himself around like a mad cow'. I kept this quiet when I later ghosted his autobiography."
Prince Harry interviewed by Andrew Marr on the BBC: “That line between public and private life is almost non-existent. Everyone has a right to their privacy, and a lot of the members of the public get it, but sadly in some areas there is this sort of incessant need to find out every little bit of detail about what goes on behind the scenes. It’s unnecessary.”
Jonathan Calvert on the Insight team of investigative journalists in the 10,000 edition of the Sunday Times [£]: "This type of journalism will never be easy and it will never be cheap. It also involves fighting for our right to freedom of expression in the courts. For The Sunday Times, two of the most significant events of last year were found not in our pages but in two libel victories that vindicated not just our commitment to investigative journalism but also our willingness to fight back at great expense when political heavyweights try to bully us."
Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, on police PR Hayley Court who claims she was expected to persuade journalists to put the South Yorkshire force in a better light, and says she felt the police strategy over Hillsborough was to blame others, including the fans: "Hayley Court highlighted a stark example of unacceptable pressure being put on communications staff by employers facing difficult media coverage. Hayley Court is an experienced expert and she had set out to report the Hillsborough inquest hearings fairly. Her approach would have served South Yorkshire Police well, but she was put under extreme pressure, which she described as bullying, by senior officials to be a spin doctor for the force's ill-conceived position which included blaming fans for the tragic loss of life at that football game.”
Analyst Joe Rundle, head of trading at ETX Capital, quoted by CityAM: “Trinity Mirror shares are popping as investors are cheering the group’s decision to ditch New Day. This is hardly a surprise – the move was moronic in the first place...Ill-conceived, badly executed and completely foolish – it’s hard to fathom what Trinity Mirror was trying to achieve.”
Roy Greenslade in the Guardian on the demise of The New Day: "Trinity Mirror had been bamboozled by optimistic forecasts of widespread public enthusiasm for a magazine-style paper with 'positive' content. Did no-one at the company stop to wonder at the unlikelihood of convincing a target audience composed of people who dislike newspapers to buy a newspaper?"
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