Thursday 13 June 2019

Media Quotes of the Week: From demagoguery not the media is the enemy of the people to if we gain Boris Johnson as PM will we lose Max Hastings?



Bryan Cranston, after winning a Tony Award for his portrayal of a broadcast journalist in Network, as reported by the New York Times“I would like to dedicate this to all the real journalists around the world, both in the press — the print media — and the broadcast media, who actually are in the line of fire with their pursuit of the truth. The media is not the enemy of the people. Demagoguery is the enemy of the people.”

Patrick Wintour @patrickwintour on Twitter: "The whole habit of blending press conferences with political rallies is grim. Nasty feature of 2015 election and before - a practice followed by Labour as much as the Tories. Audience jeers a hostile question, and then gracious leader urges his flock to show tolerance."


Chris Cook @xtophercook on Twitter: "Michael Gove taking cocaine while a journalist is paired in my mind with Sarah Sands saying journalism is like going to wonderful embassy parties where you meet amazing people. I can’t help but wonder if I’m doing it wrong."

Rory Cellan-Jones @ruskin147 on Twitter: "Wife and I who were both journalists in London in that period now feeling desperately provincial that we got by on white wine and pints of London Pride..."


The Guardian reports: "Russia’s three major newspapers have put out nearly identical front pages of their Monday editions in a show of solidarity with a detained journalist. Kommersant, Vedomosti and RBK, among the most respected daily newspapers in the country, published a joint editorial under the headline “I am/We are Ivan Golunov”, calling for a transparent investigation into the case of the prominent investigative journalist. Golunov was beaten and kept in custody for 12 hours without a lawyer."


The Times [£] in a leader: "Today The Times stands shoulder to shoulder with courageous Russian journalists and citizens defending press freedom... Targeting journalists is almost always counter-productive. Mr Golunov has written critically about the army, censorship of the media and the running of Moscow city. Predictably, interest in his work has rocketed since his arrest, and his articles have been placed under the Creative Commons licence to allow readers around the world to share the stories far and wide. "
  • On 11th June, the Russian police announced it dropped all charges against Ivan Golunov.
International Federation of Journalists general secretary Anthony Bellanger in a statement: "The mobilisation of civil society and newsrooms in support of Ivan Golunov is good news for the state of press freedom in Russia. It indicates that the regime can no longer silence critical voices with impunity. Harassment of journalists in Russia has to stop."


Sean Spicer @seanspicer on Twitter: "I wonder what female journalists think of @TheAtlantic @JeffreyGoldberg ‘s comments: 'It’s really, really hard to write a 10,000-word cover story. There are not a lot of journalists in America who can do it. The journalists in America who do it are almost exclusively white males'.”


Caitlin Moran @caitlinmoran on Twitter: "I don't know a single British female journalist in my social circle who couldn't knock out a 10,000 word piece in between childcare, three other pieces, dying their eyebrows, and pissing around on Twitter posting Madonna memes. So I don't know what's going wrong in America."

PA City editor Simon Neville @SimonNeville ‏on Twitter: "Dear PRs. Gentle reminder: saying 'that's not a story' is never a sensible line to use on a journalist."


Committee to Protect Journalists executive director Joel Simon in a statement condemning police raids on ABC in Australia: "The raids on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation newsroom and the home of reporter Annika Smethurst are deeply troubling and directly threaten Australia's standing as a country that respects press freedom. Because government abuse can be hidden or covered up through the assertion of national security, journalists must have the ability to report on such matters and protect their confidential sources. Democratic governments understand this, and provide journalists the legal protections they need to do their job."


The Sunday Times [£] on Bryan Appleyard being made CBE: "Whenever something complicated needs explaining in an accessible style, the cry goes up from Sunday Times editors: 'Get me Appleyard.' During 34 years with the newspaper, Bryan Appleyard has explained the mysteries of the brain, gene editing, intelligent design and the cultural politics of Justin Bieber’s hairstyle."


Christopher Spencer aka Coldwar Steve @Coldwar_Steve whose work has featured on Twitter on being commissioned to do a Brexit cover for TIME magazine: “I have never created something specifically for an American/international audience before, being commissioned to do the cover of TIME was mind-blowing and capped off a remarkable first half of 2019 for me.”


Blast from the past: Max Hastings, who as editor of the Daily Telegraph was Boris Johnson's boss,  in the Daily Mail in 2012: "I would not trust him with my wife nor — from painful experience — with my wallet. It is unnecessary to take any moral view about his almost crazed infidelities, but it is hard to believe that any man so conspicuously incapable of controlling his own libido is fit to be trusted with controlling the country...If the day ever comes that Boris Johnson becomes tenant of Downing Street, I shall be among those packing my bags for a new life in Buenos Aires or suchlike, because it means that Britain has abandoned its last pretensions to be a serious country."

 [£] =paywall

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