Committee to Protect Journalists program director Carlos Martínez de la Serna in a statement after journalists covering demonstrations in the US were attacked by police and protesters: “Targeted attacks on journalists, media crews, and news organisations covering the demonstrations show a complete disregard for their critical role in documenting issues of public interest and are an unacceptable attempt to intimidate them. Authorities in cities across the U.S. need to instruct police not to target journalists and ensure they can report safely on the protests without fear of injury or retaliation.”
The Times [£] in a leader: "Police are not obliged to like journalists, or even to be polite to them. But the greater hostility suggests that President Trump’s relentless attacks on the media have percolated through society and into the police...No doubt he would not welcome physical attacks on journalists, but he should be aware that words have consequences. Instead it would be more dignified for the president to speak up for press freedom, after all one of his country’s founding principles, and condemn the assaults."
John Sweeney on Twitter: "This is dark stuff. A @CNN reporter arrested live on air. He was being polite and offering to to anywhere where the police placed him. This is where
@realDonaldTrump's attacks on #fakenews ends up. Censorship in real time."
Donald Trump on Twitter: "The Lamestream Media is doing everything within their power to foment hatred and anarchy. As long as everybody understands what they are doing, that they are FAKE NEWS and truly bad people with a sick agenda, we can easily work through them to GREATNESS!"
David Yelland on Twitter: "The President is enabling and encouraging brutal elements of US police departments to attack journalists. Be in no doubt. It is worrying that not everyone at @WSJ and @FoxNews can see this."
Lionel Barber on Twitter: "The President of the United States is inciting violence against journalists. It doesn’t get much darker than this."
Piers Morgan on MailOnline: "As he always does, Trump has reacted to justified criticism by repeatedly lashing out at the ‘fake news media’, and unsurprisingly, a large number of journalists have been targeted by police in the past few days – arrested, pepper sprayed and shot at with rubber bullets. The President, not content with encouraging police to shoot black protesters, wants them to see the media as the enemy too. It’s a total disgrace, aimed to show his base supporters what a big tough guy he is."
Amol Rajan on Twitter: "Journalists everywhere are being attacked or abused, not least by the US President This is your regular reminder that most journalists are decent, public-spirited people, neither rich nor famous, who just want the truth. If you want to do without them, try living in North Korea."
Frank Gardner on Twitter: "Blatant targeting of journalists by US policemen as they report on the current wave of US protests. A familiar sight in dictatorships, depressing to see it in a western democracy. @pressfreedom"
David Yelland on Twitter: "The President is enabling and encouraging brutal elements of US police departments to attack journalists. Be in no doubt. It is worrying that not everyone at @WSJ and @FoxNews can see this."
Lionel Barber on Twitter: "The President of the United States is inciting violence against journalists. It doesn’t get much darker than this."
Piers Morgan on MailOnline: "As he always does, Trump has reacted to justified criticism by repeatedly lashing out at the ‘fake news media’, and unsurprisingly, a large number of journalists have been targeted by police in the past few days – arrested, pepper sprayed and shot at with rubber bullets. The President, not content with encouraging police to shoot black protesters, wants them to see the media as the enemy too. It’s a total disgrace, aimed to show his base supporters what a big tough guy he is."
Amol Rajan on Twitter: "Journalists everywhere are being attacked or abused, not least by the US President This is your regular reminder that most journalists are decent, public-spirited people, neither rich nor famous, who just want the truth. If you want to do without them, try living in North Korea."
Frank Gardner on Twitter: "Blatant targeting of journalists by US policemen as they report on the current wave of US protests. A familiar sight in dictatorships, depressing to see it in a western democracy. @pressfreedom"
The Times [£] in a leader: "Police are not obliged to like journalists, or even to be polite to them. But the greater hostility suggests that President Trump’s relentless attacks on the media have percolated through society and into the police...No doubt he would not welcome physical attacks on journalists, but he should be aware that words have consequences. Instead it would be more dignified for the president to speak up for press freedom, after all one of his country’s founding principles, and condemn the assaults."
@realDonaldTrump's attacks on #fakenews ends up. Censorship in real time."
- Dan Rather on Twitter: "Arresting reporters for doing their jobs is a mark of tyranny and demands a complete investigation and repercussions."
Amy Fenton, Newsquest's chief reporter in South Cumbria forced to leave her home because of threats, quoted in the Guardian: “Nothing is ever going to stop me wanting to be a journalist, ever. It was my dream from the age of about eight and I love my job. I love the way we are in a position to help people. It’s not just reporting court cases and when bad things happen. I love that we can champion people’s causes and fight for decency and morality and fairness, even though there is never anyone fighting for us.”
- Lindsey Hilsum on Twitter: "People often tell me I’m brave because I go to dodgy places. But then I go home. This is really brave: @amyfentonNWEM continuing to report from Barrow-in-Furness despite credible threats to her and her child. In Britain. Today."
Jemma Bufton, a trainee reporter on the Worcester News, in a column quoted by HoldTheFrontPage: “As a Worcester News reader before becoming a Worcester News writer I knew there were many online comments which slated the paper, the writers or those who were featured in stories. What I didn’t realise is just how relentless it is, so much so, myself and my colleagues agree our view of people has been considerably changed. Although we like to believe everyone is inherently good, it does seem that all it takes is the tiniest bit of anonymity and some people turn into absolute savages. In my short time working for the newspaper I cannot remember a day when I wasn’t publicly humiliated. It is not criticism. We can all take criticism, we put our work out there to be judged and we expect people to judge it, to question it, to nitpick. It is part of the job."
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer after Boris Johnson refused to let his top scientific and medical advisers to answer questions from the media at a press conference, as reported by BBC News: "We want transparency. Nobody should be stopped from answering questions from journalists."
Una Mullally in The Irish Times: "Just as Trump has framed contemporary American politics as reality television, in Britain, political coverage embodies the great British form of soap opera. Who’s in favour this week? Who screwed up? Who’s having an affair? Who’s having a fight? All the while, knowledge and comprehension of systems and processes is lost. There is little context in the episodic churn. Of course the latest Cummings scandal is newsworthy, but the “shock” that surrounds is numbing. How can one be shocked by something Cummings does? He’s Dominic Cummings. Boris Johnson is the prime minister. What did they expect? Send in the clowns, and you wake up in a circus."
Sir John Tusa, quoted in the Sunday Times [£] on the Emily Maitlis intro row: “No editor of Newsnight that I worked with would have allowed that to go through. No presenter would have written anything like that. It is self-indulgence and it does no service to viewers. You can either choose to be a celebrity or you can choose to be a journalist. You can’t be both.”
Will Hutton in the Observer: "The BBC management’s first instinct when under fire should have been to adopt the same judicious questioning of Maitlis off air that it expects of its presenters on air. They should have worked out a shared response based around shared values and should have done so in their own time, rather than the government’s."
Jim Waterson in the Guardian: "Dozens of journalists have been sacked after Microsoft decided to replace them with artificial intelligence software.Staff who maintain the news homepages on Microsoft’s MSN website and its Edge browser – used by millions of Britons every day – have been told that they will be no longer be required because robots can now do their jobs. Around 27 individuals employed by PA Media – formerly the Press Association – were told on Thursday that they would lose their jobs in a month’s time after Microsoft decided to stop employing humans to select, edit and curate news articles on its homepages."
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