Dame Frances Cairncross in her Review into the sustainability of high-quality UK journalism: “Ultimately, the biggest challenge facing the sustainability of high-quality journalism, and the press, may be the same as that which is affecting many areas of life: the digital revolution means that people have more claims on their attention than ever before. Moreover, the stories people want to read may not always be the ones that they ought to read in order to ensure that a democracy can hold its public servants properly to account.”
Cairncross Review on local press: "Most national and regional news publishers are generating good profits, with margins of 10% ormore. But for several publishers, a large proportion of those profits is being used to pay down debts or pension liabilities (as in the cases of Johnston Press and Reach/Trinity Mirror respectively).1 As a result, they have reduced staffing, closed local offices, and have less money available for investment in the substantial innovation that a successful digitalfuture requires."
Cairncross Review on digital giants: “The overall position online of Google and Facebook appears to be directly impeding the ability of news publishers to develop successful business strategies. Whether or not the current monetary exchange between platforms and publishers is fair, the platforms’ position allows them to take decisions with significant impact on publishers, but with little to no engagement with them. If the powerful position of Google and Facebook remains unchanged (or even grows), the Government must ensure these companies do not abuse their position, and just as critically that their position does not threaten the viability of other industries.”
Society of Editors executive director Ian Murray in a statement: "It is extremely gratifying that Dame Frances and her panel have underscored the need to protect and indeed reinvigorate the reporting of local democracy and open justice, areas which have suffered and continue to suffer as the industry contracts. An enlarging of the present Local Democracy Supporting Service, which sees funds from the BBC supporting around 150 local journalists covering councils, also makes sense, although again there is no indication where such funding would come from and on what scale. Crucial to all of the recommendations for what is really state support for the local media industry in particular, are the report’s insistence that bodies such as the proposed Institution are free from political and other interference in deciding what constitutes public interest news worth supporting.”
NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet in a statement on the Cairncross Review: "It’s a nonsense to suggest that BBC online has destroyed local newspapers – as the report says, the newspaper groups went on costly acquisition sprees before the market collapsed in the late 2000s and then cut investment and sacked hundreds of journalists to maintain profit margins. BBC Online is a trusted and much-used source of news, it is not the problem here and its future must not be imperilled."
Guido Fawkes on the Cairncross Review's call for an Institute of Public Interest News: "Why do we need another public body? Isn’t the BBC actually part of the reason independent local journalism is dying? The expansion of the BBC into local radio and covering local affairs online is killing off independent private sector journalism. The billions in revenue that the BBC has supports 46 local radio stations and the most visited news website in Britain, how can local newspapers compete with that? That the BBC has started funding a “Local Democracy Reporting Service” is an admission that it is part of the problem."
Telegraph editor Chris Evans, quoted by BBC News, after Philip Green dropped his legal case against the paper: "In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein affair, we became aware that gagging orders called NDAs were being used to cover up allegations of sexual misconduct and racial abuse in the workplace. And that led to our investigation into Sir Philip Green and Arcadia. We maintain there is a clear public interest in telling people whether a prospective employer has been accused of sexual misconduct and racial abuse."
Green in an audio recording released by the Telegraph: "I will personally sue your editor for damages that will be long beyond what he'll be able to earn if he lives to 1,000 years old."
International Federation of Journalists president Philippe Leruth, after an IFJ report revealed the cases of 94 journalists and media professionals who lost their lives in targeted killings, bomb attacks or crossfire incidents in 2018: "Those tragic figures remind us of our duty to act and hold governments responsible for the lack of investigation for journalists' crimes. We need an international instrument to force all states to act to halt the killing of journalists and bring the killers to justice. Our draft Convention on the Safety and Independence of Journalists and other media professionals would achieve this."
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, quoted by the Sunday Times [£]: “I want there to be an international taboo for journalists to be killed or detained in the course of their work. I want countries considering doing that to feel it is going to make them the focus of huge international attention and therefore it is not a step they should take.”
Sir Harold Evans in the Sunday Times [£]: "The majority of journalists’ deaths are not bad luck on a battlefield. They are planned assassinations. Nine out of every 10 have been killed in their own countries at the instigation of government and military authorities, drug traffickers and criminal gangs. Since 1992, a total of 737 journalists have been murdered with impunity: not a single perpetrator identified.”
Mark Mazzetti in the New York Times: "Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia told a top aide in a conversation in 2017 that he would use “a bullet” on Jamal Khashoggi, if Mr. Khashoggi did not return to the kingdom and end his criticism of the Saudi government, according to current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of intelligence reports. The conversation, intercepted by American intelligence agencies, is the most detailed evidence to date that the crown prince considered killing Mr. Khashoggi long before a team of Saudi operatives strangled him inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and dismembered his body using a bone saw."
LBC's James O'Brien, interviewed by the New York Times about the high profile his anti-Brexit stance has brought him: “Hand on heart, I’d swap it all to see my country go back to what it was like before the referendum. Achieving fame of sorts for chronicling and criticising an act of epic national self-harm is a mixed blessing to say the least.”
Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos posts about communications with National Enquirer publisher America Media Inc, headed by David Pecker: "These communications cement AMI’s long-earned reputation for weaponizing journalistic privileges, hiding behind important protections, and ignoring the tenets and purpose of true journalism. Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out."
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International Federation of Journalists president Philippe Leruth, after an IFJ report revealed the cases of 94 journalists and media professionals who lost their lives in targeted killings, bomb attacks or crossfire incidents in 2018: "Those tragic figures remind us of our duty to act and hold governments responsible for the lack of investigation for journalists' crimes. We need an international instrument to force all states to act to halt the killing of journalists and bring the killers to justice. Our draft Convention on the Safety and Independence of Journalists and other media professionals would achieve this."
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, quoted by the Sunday Times [£]: “I want there to be an international taboo for journalists to be killed or detained in the course of their work. I want countries considering doing that to feel it is going to make them the focus of huge international attention and therefore it is not a step they should take.”
Sir Harold Evans in the Sunday Times [£]: "The majority of journalists’ deaths are not bad luck on a battlefield. They are planned assassinations. Nine out of every 10 have been killed in their own countries at the instigation of government and military authorities, drug traffickers and criminal gangs. Since 1992, a total of 737 journalists have been murdered with impunity: not a single perpetrator identified.”
Mark Mazzetti in the New York Times: "Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia told a top aide in a conversation in 2017 that he would use “a bullet” on Jamal Khashoggi, if Mr. Khashoggi did not return to the kingdom and end his criticism of the Saudi government, according to current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of intelligence reports. The conversation, intercepted by American intelligence agencies, is the most detailed evidence to date that the crown prince considered killing Mr. Khashoggi long before a team of Saudi operatives strangled him inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and dismembered his body using a bone saw."
LBC's James O'Brien, interviewed by the New York Times about the high profile his anti-Brexit stance has brought him: “Hand on heart, I’d swap it all to see my country go back to what it was like before the referendum. Achieving fame of sorts for chronicling and criticising an act of epic national self-harm is a mixed blessing to say the least.”
Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos posts about communications with National Enquirer publisher America Media Inc, headed by David Pecker: "These communications cement AMI’s long-earned reputation for weaponizing journalistic privileges, hiding behind important protections, and ignoring the tenets and purpose of true journalism. Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption. I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out."
- V.A. "Vinnie" Musetto became a newspaper legend after he was credited with the 1983 New York Post banner headline 'Headless Body In Topless Bar.'
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