Media Quotes of the Week: From this is the most thrilling and frightening time to be a journalist to staff photographers are an endangered species

Columbia Journalism Review editor-in-chief Kyle Pope on a special issue of the CJR on the threats facing journalism: "What this issue makes clear is that journalists around the world are doing astonishing work in a climate that is perhaps tougher than ever. We are working under a leader of the free world who calls us liars, as our ad revenue continues to leach away to Facebook and others, in office environments that can be hostile to our own coworkers. I’ve said before that we are living through one of the most thrilling—and frightening—moments to be a journalist in our lifetimes. The story is enormous. Our readers care deeply what we have to say. The stakes couldn’t be higher."

Matthew Moore in The Times [£]: "The former head of Formula One is seeking to gag the media using a law never intended to limit press freedom. Max Mosley, 77, is attempting to use data protection law to force newspapers including The Times to stop publishing widely reported details about his sexual life. The privacy campaigner is also trying to ban newspapers from asserting that he personally funds or bankrolls Impress, the state-recognised press regulator, or can exert control or influence over it...Mr Mosley’s attempts to use the Data Protection Act 1998 to restrict press freedom in this way are legally unprecedented. The act governs how companies and organisations can handle individuals’ private data but includes a broad exemption for journalism."

• The Times in a leader: "The Data Protection Act 1998 was passed by parliament to protect personal data from misuse in an age when more and more of it is accessible online to any company, government or hacker who knows how and where to look. It was not passed to muzzle the press."

Hugh Muir in the Guardian on Trinity Mirror buying the Express titles from Richard Desmond: "These days good cheer for the print sector is rare but it must ultimately be good news that Richard Desmond has decided there are better things to do than be a press baron. Press barons aren’t a much admired breed but Desmond over his 17 years found ways to lower even a denuded brand. He took a newspaper with a long history – once the biggest selling daily paper in the world – and turned it into an object of ridicule and pity."

Guido Fawkes on this blog: "The usual suspects who raise a hue and cry about media plurality seem strangely silent about the Mirror – Express merger. Print sector media plurality is being dramatically reduced from four major media groups to 3 plus the also rans. The new group will have about a quarter market share of the UK dead tree press. As the print market withers it is turning oligopolistic…Tom Watson is silent, the usual gobby ‘media plurality’ campaigners are also mute. The Guardian isn’t going on about the hackers at the Mirror not being fit and proper to take over the Express. There are genuine public interest concerns; plurality is being reduced and the distinctive political voice of the Express is being put at risk. Are plurality concerns only applicable to Rupert Murdoch?"

Rob Irvine, who is stepping down as editor of the Manchester Evening News: "It has been a privilege to be editor of the Manchester Evening News and to have led such a talented team of journalists. We have tackled the ever-changing landscape of multi-media journalism to build a local, national and global audience. What matters to our readers matters to us. We offered a place for the people of Greater Manchester to come together when our city suffered a murderous act of terror which claimed 22 innocent lives in May last year. We raised millions of pounds for the bereaved and those most affected, and through our We Stand Together campaign we are helping to heal our city's wounds. Now it's time for me to hand over the reins."

The Times [£] in a leader: "Without a reporter in the room at a magistrates’ court, patterns in crime go unnoticed, police prejudices unprobed, communities unprotected by knowledge of what is happening around them. Without reporters on the streets, abuses of children or of old people in care homes go unrecorded. Public life does not hold itself to account. That is why the future of the press matters, even if newspapers may seem self-serving in writing about it. That is why the government should be congratulated for announcing a review into the sustainability of newspapers."

Fiona Swarbrick, NUJ national organiser, on unpaid internships in journalism  "Employers often talk the talk when it comes to increasing diversity, but they are reluctant to deal with the practicalities of the problem. The reality is that unpaid internships (as well as poorly paid entry level jobs) can make it impossible to get your foot on the ladder if you don’t have access to financial support from elsewhere."

Matthew Parris in The Times on "Nick" [£]:  "Were the British — were ordinary men and women — really gripped by a wave of madness in which it became possible to believe the rantings of a self-serving fantasist? Maybe they were; maybe millions do think Westminster and Whitehall really are like this; but the media? The reply “we must report what we hear” won’t do. Palpable or likely hogwash should be reported in sceptical voice. Too often, Nick’s exotic fantasies were reported wide-eyed."

Committee to Protect Journalists: "Myanmar's media, both local and foreign, are under heavy assault as security measures used to suppress the press under military rule are reactivated under Suu Kyi's quasi-democratic regime, several journalists who cover the country told CPJ. It marks a dramatic reversal in recent press freedom gains and augurs ill for the country's delicate transition from military to elected rule...Nowhere is that backsliding more apparent than in the continued pretrial detention of local Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo."

Matthew Moore in The Times [£]:  "A YouTube documentary that blamed government failings for the Grenfell Tower fire was produced by a media organisation owned by the Russian state, it can be revealed. The three-part series, presented by a former resident of the block, was described as a “grassroots report” into how austerity and gentrification caused the tragedy. In fact the film was made by a subsidiary of the Kremlin-controlled television network RT."

The NUJ reports: "£15 a week. That is the budget available to spend on photography at local Johnston Press newspapers in Scotland. This sum amounts to less than a daily cup of coffee from your local takeaway. Johnston Press, publishers of local newspapers such as Deeside Piper, Fife Herald, and Montrose Review, has cut away at the amount its spends on professional photographers. It is a similar situation at its titles across the UK, where staff photographers have become an endangered species."

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