Media Quotes of the Week: From journalists attacked, arrested and killed covering protests to national BBC radio reporters face redundancy

A new UNESCO report Safety of Journalists Covering Protests – Preserving Freedom of the Press During Times of Civil Unrest  highlights a sharp increase in the global number of protests during which the police and security forces violated media freedom in the first half of 2020. It says: "Between January and June this year, 21 protests around the world were marred by violations of press freedom, including protests in which journalists were attacked, arrested and even killed. The report suggests that a troubling new threshold has been crossed, revealing a significant and growing threat to media freedom and freedom of access to information in all regions of the world. The report also found that ten journalists were killed while covering protests over the last five years."

The Welsh Parliament’s Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee report on regional press, as reported by HoldTheFrontPage:  “The UK government’s Job Retention Scheme has been widely used within the sector. However, we are concerned that the scheme appears to have turned into a ‘waiting room for redundancy’ and that there could be an avalanche of redundancies and newspapers closures when it ends in October. We are therefore calling on the Welsh government to lobby the UK government to extend the scheme beyond October to allow businesses more time to plan for the future and to avoid major and permanent decisions with potentially severe consequences being made during this crisis.”

Georgina Morris, lead NUJ  rep for the JPIMedia group chapel, in a statement on planned job cuts and the company being up for sale: "The news of up to 30 job cuts has caused huge upset and anxiety, particularly for the 150 or so journalists working in the teams directly affected. While everyone was still reeling from that announcement, we then learned JPIMedia had £22m in cash reserves - via an email confirming the company was up for sale again. It has been difficult for people to reconcile the job cuts in light of those reserves, and more than one reference has been made to the #therewithyou pledge carried on our papers' mastheads after the pandemic began."

Claire Beal in her last column after 20 years at Campaign: "Two decades, and what a ride: a vein-pulsing, heart-swelling, frustrating, dirty rush of a ride. A relentless privilege. I’ve loved it. I have hated a few things: the newspaper sales chief who threatened to break my legs, the recruitment company boss who menacingly told me they were going to kill my career (15 years ago), the CEO who tried to bring down Campaign because of something we published on our diary page, the agency chief who broke into my conference hotel room in the middle of the night while I was asleep and tried to get into my bed, countless bullying legal threats when we wrote about things people would rather keep hidden."

A Women in Journalism report, based on a week-long review in mid-July of front pages of major newspapers, prime-time popular TV news channels and 100 hours of radio news, found:

● Not a single black reporter was featured on the front page of any of the newspapers.
● Out of the 174 front-page bylines counted, just one in four went to women.
● Out of the 111 people quoted on the front pages, just 16% were women. 
● Out of the 111 people quoted on the front pages, just one was a black woman. 

● Seven of the 11 major newspapers checked did not feature a single BAME reporter on the front page.

David Bartlett, Reach audience and content director, on LinkedIn: "Journalism has a problem. Most people working in the industry would recognise it. We are not representative enough of the communities we aim to report on...We've received support from across the company and as a result announced the launch of Reach Boost. Under the scheme the company will fund three training places for aspiring journalists from a diverse range of backgrounds. If the scheme is successful we hope it can be rolled out in more areas."

George Monbiot on Twitter: "There is no such thing as "the news". At any time, millions of events and trends are happening around the world. Editors select a tiny handful of them and declare them newsworthy. And, with the help of thinktanks and lobbyists, they invent stories out of thin air."

Donald Trump after being asked by ABC News' Jon Karl about his response to Covid 19: "Why did you lie to the American people, and why should we trust what you have to say now?” as reported by Deadline: "That’s a terrible question, And the phraseology. I didn’t lie. What I said is we have to be calm. We can’t be panicked. It’s a disgrace to ABC television network. It’s a disgrace to your employer.”

Trump on why he gave 17 interviews to Bob Woodward for his book Rage: "I did it out of curiosity. I wonder whether or not somebody like that can write good. I don't think he can. Let's see what happens."

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet in a statement on the Julian Assange extradition hearing: "If this extradition is allowed, it will send a clear signal that journalists and publishers are at risk whenever their work discomforts the United States government. Media freedom the world over will take a significant backward step if Assange is forced to face these charges at the behest of a US president."

Matt Hancock gets the newspapers

Alastair Campbell in the New European on the Government's response to the Extinction Rebellion blockade of newspaper print works: "The problem for Johnson is that a belief in freedom of the press is what we call a ‘principle,’ and he is somewhat short on those. His government is not upholding that belief as a principle, but as a political tactic. They were not rushing to defend the free press but to make sure Murdoch and Co stayed broadly on side. They support and stand up for the press that supports and stands up for them. Hancock and Jenrick would have been far smarter to have included a Mirror, a Guardian or, even better, a New European, in their staged photos."

The Observer reports: "The BBC plans to axe all its national radio reporters and ask them to reapply for a smaller number of jobs as television, radio and digital reporters, rather than as dedicated audio journalists. Many fear it is not just the end of their careers but the premature end of an era for the BBC."

A radio journalists tells the Observer: “Radio reporting is a different job. Of course, you can do both, but a report designed for television starts from a completely different place. Radio is also more agile and also a lot less expensive. I am pretty sure most of us will not be given new TV roles. It seems sad to lose all that specific radio expertise.”