Media Quotes of the Week: From reporter tells Corbyn 'we ask the questions' to an image of a bombed out boy in Aleppo brings hope and despair

Sky News reporter to Jeremy Corbyn, quoted by the Mirror: "We live in a free country. It's about what I want to ask, not what you want me to ask about."

The Daily Telegraph in a leader: "The Guardian stated that “Jeremy Corbyn, famed for standing up for his principles, sat down for them”. Only it was all a sham. The Labour leader did have a seat on the train and in CCTV footage released by Virgin, the train operator, he can be seen occupying it.The man who has supposedly brought us the 'new politics' turns out to be just as a shameless an exponent of the media stunt as all the others, only less competent."

The Guardian in a leader: "No one can pretend that traingate is one of most important news stories of the era. All the same it is a very emblematic tale of our times. For one thing, it would not have happened in the pre-internet age at all, because even if Mr Corbyn had actually been compelled to sit on a train carriage floor on the way to Newcastle a generation ago, no one would have been there to capture an image of it, no newspaper would have been able to post the video of his denunciation of privatisation, and there would have been no CCTV footage of him walking past unreserved and unoccupied seats either. Whether the whole thing was an amateurish political stunt by the Labour leader, as Mr Branson implies, or rotten treatment by a privatised company, as Mr Corbyn claimed, no one else would have ever heard about it anyway."

Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump on Twitter: "It is being reported by virtually everyone, and is a fact, that the media pile on against me is the worst in American political history!"

 

The NUJ Newsquest London chapel in a statement: "Newsquest's willingness to lie to the trade press, by denying just how desperately under-resourced its newsrooms are, came as no surprise to the teams working in them. Our journalists remain in the dark about what the managing director's plans are, because he has not communicated with us. This chips away at our morale and emotional well-being week by week. Newspapers covering Merton and Epsom have been staffed by lone trainees with no permanent editor for months, while the 142-year-old Richmond and Twickenham Times will have just one trainee reporter from September. ”

Former BBC director general Mark Thompson in the Sunday Times Magazine [£] on the sacking of Jeremy Clarkson: “Clarkson can be a deeply objectionable individual, and I say that as a friend. I don’t think people should punch their colleagues. It’s hard to keep them if they do. But I would say his pungent, transgressive, slightly out-of-control talent was something the BBC could ill afford to lose. He spoke to people who didn’t find much else in the BBC. The fact no one could ever quite believe the BBC allowed Top Gear to go out was a precious thing to hang on to. As a fan, I regret its passing.”

Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday: "Anjem Choudary, broadcasting’s favourite Islamist loudmouth, was and is a vain, bloviating, blowhard fraud, another boozy drug-taking low-life posing as a serious person. He found a role and fools to indulge him, many in the same media who now queue up to rejoice at his imprisonment."

Piers Morgan interviewed in The Times [£]: “This idea that you can’t ever break the law as a journalist is plainly ridiculous. Sometimes it’s an essential tool of journalism. And to pretend otherwise is very naive about the reality. Whether it’s Wikileaks or MPs’ expenses, law-breaking by journalists is fine if public interest outweighs the criminality and you can express why you could only get this information through illegal means. It’s perfectly reasonable.”

Press Recognition Panel chairman David Wolfe QC, as reported by Press Gazette: "Keen to ensure that everybody has the fullest opportunity to respond to the application so that we in turn have the fullest possible basis to make a robust and independent decision on Impress’s application, the board has today decided to defer its consideration of the Impress application to allow a 20 working day further call for information."

Mustafa al-Sarout, the Aleppo-based journalist whose film of young Omran Daqneesh after he was pulled from the rubble of a bombed building went viral, quoted by the Guardian: “I’ve seen so many children rescued out of the rubble, but this child, with his innocence, he had no clue what was going on. He put his hand on his face and saw blood. He didn’t know even what happened to him. I’ve photographed a lot of airstrikes in Aleppo, but there was so much there in his face, the blood and the dust mixed, at that age.”

The Times [£] in a leader: "Since heartrending pictures of the five-year-old boy flashed round the globe, doctors who patched him up have expressed anger that it takes an apparently random image to focus international attention on a disaster the world seems to be trying to ignore. Their frustration is understandable. Omran was lucky. The photographer who took his picture had already helped to pick three dead children from the rubble. The traumatised boy has become a symbol nevertheless of hope as well as despair."

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Media Quotes of the Week: From are the BBC Olympics team in Rio journalists or cheerleaders? to why Companies House shouldn't restrict data

Simon Jenkins in the Guardian: "At 10 o’clock we were denied important news – of Anjem Choudary’s conviction, of swingeing tax fines and of possible 'special status' for Britain outside the EU. Instead we had to sit for an hour and a half, waiting for three minutes of BBC pandemonium as British cyclists yet again pedalled fast. We had to watch while the BBC aired pictures of its own commentary box punching the air and howling. These were not so much journalists as state cheerleaders."

Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, quoted by Press Gazette, after the magazine recorded average sales of 230,099 a fortnight – its highest circulation since 1986: “It’s amazing… 30 years ago we had a Conservative female Prime Minister, the Labour party was in a mess and we had a TV star who ended up as the US President – how times have changed.”

Donald Trump, pointing at the journalists covering his rally, as reported by the New York Times: "These people are the lowest form of life, I’m telling you. They are the lowest form of humanity.”

Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump on Twitter: "If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly and didn't put false meaning into the words I say, I would be beating Hillary by 20%."

Sir Philip Green objecting to being filmed by a Sky News camera crew: "That's going in the f****** sea."

William Turvill in City A.M.: "The owners of the Daily Telegraph have reiterated that their newspapers are not for sale after it emerged that two high-profile media figures have approached them about the company this year. Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the Evening Standard and now online-only Independent newspapers, is understood to have made an informal approach over the availability of Telegraph Media Group earlier this year."

The Guardian in a leader: "Journalists do not deserve protection because they constitute a privileged group; they need it because they can show the world as it really is and allow the unheard to find a voice. There is a reason why people so often want to shut them up. Halting print runs, closing down websites, silencing radio stations and blacking out TV screens are all ways of concealing misdeeds, preventing scrutiny or simply blocking alternative viewpoints. But such actions also serve to remind us all why press freedom matters."

Robert Hutton ‏@RobDotHutton on Twitter: "The Guardian's "why aren't you paying for the thing we don't charge for?" ads get ever more passive aggressive."

From the Telegraph's obit on Morning Star editor Tony Chater: "The paper tried to prevent Express Newspapers launching the Daily Star. It received short shrift, the judge who heard the case declaring that 'only a moron in a hurry' would confuse the two."

Private Eye on the "dangerously regressive" proposal by Companies House to remove from its publicly accessible free database the records of all companies which have been dissolved more than six years. Presently theses records are accessible for 20 years: "The Eye has often relied on the story told by Companies House records of long-dissolved companies to dig out the truth. Using such records last year, we first revealed that BHS buyer Dominic Chappell had a history of business failures - companies dissolved between 1994 and 2005 that would not have been available in 2015 under the proposed new deletion regime."

Media Quotes of the Week: From NUJ and Johnston Press boss don't see eye to eye on i to beware August meeting on new press regulator

Johnston Press chief executive Ashley Highfield: “The acquisition of the i newspaper in April was transformational for Johnston Press. Since the acquisition we have increased circulation considerably, using the extensive JP distribution network, and continued to grow market share. The market continues to be challenging and uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the Brexit negotiations has caused further softness in some segments of the advertising market, in June and July.”

Laura Davison, NUJ national organiser, in a statement: "Sadly Ashley Highfield is living in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks the acquisition of the i is transformational. Taking on extra debt and flogging off other assets will not result in salvation for Johnston Press. Our members see the actual reality in the company's newsrooms day in and day out. Content sharing between the i and other titles is a way of trying to mask low staffing levels in Johnston Press sites with all the consequent problems for quality journalism and stressed-out staff."

Liz Gerard on her SubScribe blog: "The trouble is that almost all of our local newspapers are now owned by one of three groups - Trinity Mirror, Johnston Press and the American-owned Newsquest - each of which seems to have problems with the definition of 'local'. Well here's a clue: if something is 10, 20 or 50 miles away, it isn't local. If your office is on an industrial estate when your readers are in the high street, it isn't local. If your reporter is in one town, your editor in another and your subs in a different county or even country, your product isn't local."

Gareth Davies ‏@Gareth_Davies on Twitter: "Little bit of news following last week's article and tweets about the issues facing local papers in the UK...So, to that end, I've set up @journalocal, which which aims to share the best examples of local journalism in the UK."

Donald Trump, as reported by NBC News:  "It's so disgusting what's going on with the media that we have too win. We have to win."

Peter Preston in the Observer: "Turkey is not some faraway country. In media, and many other, terms it is a fragile democracy with a fast-developing economy. It has TV stations, newspapers and websites local and national. It is, in aspiration and often in fulfilment, part of the modern world. Yet, at a blow, its government can close 45 newspapers, three news agencies, 16 TV channels, 15 magazines and 29 publishers. It can round up 80 journalists (not to mention thousands of soldiers, police officers, lecturers, teachers and government employees). It can censor the internet, blocking access to more than 20 news sites."

Sunday Post journalist Darryl Smith on being one of the last two journalists to leave Fleet Street, as reported by BBC News: "As someone who always wanted to be a journalist, and with a keen sense of history as well, just looking at the buildings even now still excites me. It makes me smile, when I think of how I now have that place in history."

The Daily Mail on the decision by the Press Recognition Panel to meet on August 23 to consider whether to recognise Impress: "Campaigners fear that the meeting will see approval for the would-be Press watchdog Impress rubber stamped. The body is almost entirely funded by Max Mosley, who has been a key figure in calls for tougher Press regulation after he sued the now-closed paper News Of The World after it printed photos of him taking part in an orgy with prostitutes....If Impress is recognised, it could trigger implementation of a draconian law under which newspapers may have to pay the legal costs of people who sue them - even if the newspaper wins its case.”"

Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors: "It does seem strange that the PRP should choose to make its decision when most people with an interest are likely to be on holiday. The majority of major publishers have long-term contracts with Ipso. The industry has voted with its feet."

Media Quotes of the Week: From it's the privileged who get the plum journalism jobs to should journalists be objective about Donald Trump?

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet on the union's submission to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility inquiry into Access into Leading Professions: "The media is still over-represented by people from privileged backgrounds who went to private schools and then on to elite universities. The union looks forward to hearing the employers' responses to the All Party Parliamentary Group inquiry and what they are doing to open up the industry to the socially disadvantaged. Because too many people are being simply priced out of the profession. They also lack the networks of the old school tie that still hold sway when people are recruited to the plum jobs."

Roy Greenslade, quoted by the Guardian: "Since I started in the 60s, there has a been a geographic and demographic shift (towards wealthy journalists from the south-east). It’s partly because of the closing down of Glasgow and Manchester offices, which were a talent pool. People once saw a career ladder, from a local weekly, to a regional paper, onto a national. But people are now going straight from master’s [degrees] to Fleet Street.”

Award winning ex-Croydon Advertiser journalist Gareth Davies‏@Gareth_Davies09 on Twitter: "V. sad that this is what Trinity has reduced @croydonad to: running crap listicles in the paper on consecutive pages...A paper with a proud 147-year history reduced to being a thrown together collection of clickbait written for the web...Well, it breaks my heart. I couldn't stick around to watch the paper be destroyed & I would not help them do it...The few reporters who are left are not allowed to meet contacts unless there is a guarantee of a story...Without any prior warning they were put on shifts, including working on Sundays. Every six weeks reporters have to work 12 consecutive days"

Glenn Ebrey ‏@glennebrey on Twitter: "Tweets from @Gareth_Davies09 paint a very sad &, regrettably, accurate picture of what's happening at paper I loved editing for six years."

Neil Benson, Trinity Mirror's regional editorial director, in a statement to Press Gazette: “We are disappointed and baffled by Gareth’s Twitter outburst and do not recognise the claims he makes. The culture at the Croydon Advertiser, particularly since Gareth left and we introduced the new structure, has been one of positivity and excitement about what the future has in store and how the newspaper and website are evolving...The days when reporters could choose, arrogantly, to write about what interests them, rather than what interests the audience, are over. Newspapers are not funded by government or charity donations. As publishers the country and world over are realising, you have to make a profit to survive, and you have to have an audience of significant scale. Without an audience, there is no sustainable future.”

A Trinity Mirror spokeswoman quoted by HoldTheFrontPage: “None of the claims made by Gareth Davies stacks up. Every one of his points is either a misinterpretation of basic standard practice or completely untrue. It is clear he is intent on misrepresenting the Croydon Advertiser and Trinity Mirror, the people who work here and the journalism we produce as part of a personal crusade. We, meanwhile, will continue with our strategy of evolving to ensure a future for our titles.”

Liz Gerard who ran an article by Gareth Davies on her SubScribe blog and got no response from Trinity Mirror when she asked for a comment: "It seems extraordinary for the company to decline to respond to the article on the site where it was published, and then to use another platform to impugn the integrity of a reporter it was happy to claim as its own when he was collecting prizes. Davies is not the man in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square, but he is a lone figure standing up to a big organisation and it isn't good PR for that organisation to be seen to be trying to silence or squash him."

Glenn Ebrey ‏@glennebrey on Twitter: "The people at TM south-east are among the most dedicated, talented you will find in the profession...They don't need pushing to work hard - they'll just do it. Try to treat them like human beings with a bit of decency eh?... And the tone of Trinity’s responses – catty, personal, lacking in class – is much more telling than the emptiness of their words."

Guardian production editor DavidMarsh in a farewell blog after 20 years on the paper: "Like many journalists I started off wanting to be Robert Redford in All the President’s Men. But my favourite job was, less glamorously, editing local papers (long before a proposed new newspaper called the Independent decided, inexplicably, to add me to its launch team 30 years ago, almost to the day). At a local level it’s easier to work with the community to change things for, you hope, the better. Campaigning is the lifeblood of a good local newspaper although, given the way they have been grotesquely mismanaged for many years, with staffing cut to the bone, many find it increasingly difficult to do so."

Peter Preston ‏@PJPrest on Twitter: "Flags in San Serriffe at half mast today. Geoffrey Taylor, master of those legendary Guardian April 1 revels, has died, aged 89."

City media analyst Lorna Tilbian writing for the News Media Association on the circulation rises for newspapers sparked by the EU referendum: "The referendum circulation bounce unequivocally demonstrated that print newspapers remain an important source of information and, at times of instability and uncertainty, they become even more valuable to their readers. Advertisers who are shifting their money away from print need to give this some serious thought."

Roy Greenslade on MediaGuardian: "At times of crisis, people need facts and the identification of terrorists, whether dead or live, is an indispensable part of the required information. Indeed, there is clearly a need to know as much as possible about individual terrorists, about their lives and backgrounds. How else can we understand the reasons for their willingness to commit such acts? We should seek more information, not less."

The Times [£] reports: "The Times has been blocked from reporting explosive details in a £132 million lawsuit brought against two of Britain’s top property developers.The Candy brothers and Mark Holyoake, a former friend who is suing them, each employed libel lawyers who argued that a crucial development in the case should be kept secret. In the action the brothers have already been accused of tax evasion, money laundering and blackmail."

John Witherow, editor of The Times, quoted in The Drum: “Appealing for donations of £49 is not the answer, because it's not enough. You need a million people donating £49 to pay for the journalism at the Guardian which is very good but it's expensive. They have to really rethink their model.”

David Mindich in the Columbia Journalism Review suggests journalists cannot be neutral about Donald Trump: "We’ve reached a turning point, and the two criteria for journalists to abandon their objectivity have come to pass: Trump is widely criticized, even by his own party, giving journalists a lot of company in their criticism of him. When Trump suggested that Judge Curiel was incapable of trying a case because of his parents’ birthplace, even House Speaker Paul Ryan, a fellow Republican, called the comments 'racist.'And Trump’s views appear increasingly deviant. No respected journalist would seek a balancing quote from someone who held such a view about a judge or who suggested, as Trump did after the Orlando shootings, that a sitting president was in cahoots with a mass murderer."

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