Media Quotes of the Week: Drama ding dong as BBC News staff play themselves in Bodyguard to phone-hacking a moral catastrophe for British journalism akin to the Enron and VW scandals

David Elstein in The Times [£] on the BBC drama Bodyguard: "Is the drama realistic? Not very, but in striving to persuade viewers of the credibility of a personal protection officer suffering from postwar PTSD and a failing marriage, assigned to protect a war-loving, sex-hungry home secretary exploiting terrorist attacks to ramp up security measures which threaten personal privacy, the BBC has induced many of its own presenters and reporters to “play themselves”. It is not wise of the corporation to risk the authority of so many of its professional news staff in lending verisimilitude to this kind of tosh."

Andrew Marr on his cameo in Bodyguard, in the Guardian: "Behind a story such as Bodyguard lies a whole system of beliefs about power structures, human complexity, moral choices, loyalty, courage, failure and so on. If I didn’t trust the writer, if I didn’t think I’d like the values, I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to help. I don’t think there is a single person in the country who would confuse this with real-world news, who would think [Keeley] Hawes was Amber Rudd. And for the avoidance of doubt, I’d never do a cameo in anything, commercial or political, that sought to confuse. Also, it was great fun."

Michael Cole on MailOnline: "If there was anyone left at the top of BBC News and Current Affairs with the experience and judgment required on such sensitive issues as this, then I believe he or she would have immediately vetoed the participation of its leading presenters and reporters. That is what would have happened in the past when we had seasoned journalists who really understood news values — men and women familiar with the old journalistic adage that ‘facts are sacred’ — running the BBC."

Reuters editor-in-chief Stephen J Adler in a statement, after the jailing for seven years of the agency's reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo in Myanmar: “These two admirable reporters have already spent nearly nine months in prison on false charges designed to silence their reporting and intimidate the press. This is a major step backward in Myanmar’s transition to democracy, cannot be squared with the rule of law or freedom of speech, and must be corrected by the Myanmar government as a matter of urgency."

Amnesty International's Northern Ireland director Patrick Corrigan after the arrests of Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey, who produced the documentary No Stone Unturned about the murder of six men at Loughinisland, Northern Ireland, quoted by BBC News: "Journalists must be free to investigate and expose issues of public concern. Few subjects could be of more significant public concern than the mass shooting of civilians and the alleged collusion of the police in assisting those responsible to evade justice. These arrests will send a worrying message to other journalists in Northern Ireland and could have a chilling effect on legitimate investigative reporting."

Monty Don @TheMontyDon on Twitter: "I loath the post-Trump acronym MSM (mainstream media) and the way it is used dismissively, especially by those that barely consume it. British journalism, newspaper and broadcast, is mostly superb and should be supported in every possible way."

Donald Trump @realDonaldTrump on Twitter: "I just cannot state strongly enough how totally dishonest much of the Media is. Truth doesn’t matter to them, they only have their hatred & agenda. This includes fake books, which come out about me all the time, always anonymous sources, and are pure fiction. Enemy of the People!"

• The BBC's John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews commenting on Trump's tweet on Twitter: "A lot of people in Britain now use exactly the same words about our own media: 'dishonest', 'hatred', 'agenda', 'fake', 'enemy of the people'. Maybe when they see whose side they're on, they might consider toning down their language."

Verified account

BREAKING / NBC News: "The FBI has arrested Robert Chain, 68, from Encino, California for threats they say he made to The Boston Globe following their recent editorial about the press. Chain allegedly referred to The Boston Globe as "the enemy of the people" in phone calls."

Barack Obama in his eulogy for John McCain, as reported by The Atlantic: "He understood that if we get in the habit of bending the truth to suit political expediency or party orthodoxy, our democracy will not work. That's why he was willing to buck his own party at times, occasionally work across the aisle on campaign-finance reform and immigration reform. That's why he championed a free and independent press as vital to our democratic debate."

Paul Dacre in a farewell letter to Daily Mail staff, as published by Press Gazette: "Only those of us lucky enough to have worked on a great daily newspaper understand the grinding, exhausting tyranny of the clock in the adrenaline-fuelled quest, six days a week, to produce a perfect paper and experience the creative euphoria of occasionally achieving that...Many things (mostly risibly and contemptibly inaccurate) are written about the Mail. But what no-one can deny is that this floor houses Britain’s finest team of professional journalists who, over the decades, have produced much magnificent journalism. To have worked so closely with all of you producing that journalism – and, hopefully, making this country a little better place to live in – has been a joy and a privilege. I salute each and every one of you.”

Alan Rusbridger in the Guardian on the phone-hacking scandal: "Unchecked criminality within newsrooms was a moral catastrophe for British journalism and its role in our democracy. It was our Enron, our Volkswagen, our Deepwater, our subprime crisis. It was depressing to watch some colleagues retreat into the bunker and use their own bully-pages to close down debate by savaging anyone who offered even constructive help in rebuilding trust in the press. I loathed the threats and abuse directed at anyone who dared to disagree."

[£] =paywall