Thursday 29 October 2020

Media Quotes of the Week: From the crisis facing jobs in journalism to how Prince Andrew tried to influence the Financial Times' coverage of Dubai



Lauren Harris in the Columbia Journalism Review on the crisis facing journalism in the US: "For those reporters now unemployed, job prospects are grim. According to a September report by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, while employment across all occupations is projected to grow by four percent over the next ten years, employment in journalism is projected to decline by eleven percent. The crisis is not going away...The crisis has been happening for years. Like a frog boiled slowly, we’ve allowed ourselves to adjust to the calamity, again and again. But emphasizing survival over dwindling capacity hurts the industry, and hurts the people who keep it alive."
  • The Journalism Crisis Project has set its sights on finding and elevating possible solutions to the challenges that face the press in 2020. It aims to focus on the present crisis, tallying lost jobs and outlets and fostering a conversation about what comes next.

John Pienaar in The Sunday Times [£]: "In 40 years of reporting and broadcasting about politics, daily and most weekends, I’ve never known a time when rational, mature leadership has been more needed and yet been so wretchedly absent."


Jim Waterson in the Guardian on the fake Woolworths story sparked by a Twitter account: "
The person who duped many of the UK’s leading news outlets into running stories wrongly claiming Woolworths was returning to the high street can be revealed as a 17-year-old sixth-form student from York...The sixth former told the Guardian they had been practising skills learned while taking a course in digital marketing as part of their business A-level: “The experiment wasn’t meant to get that big … but thanks to the media and over 5,000 followers, the story got big and it spread further.”


Sean O'Neill in The Times [£]:  
"Journalists will be protected by new laws that require social media companies to take responsibility for threats and abusive material on their platforms. Ministers have established a national committee for the safety of journalists in the face of increased hostility. Ministers are about to publish plans for legislation to tackle online hatred. John Whittingdale, junior minister at the department of culture, media and sport, said: 'The need for accurate and trusted news has never been greater, yet attacks against journalists and the vital work they do are increasing'.”


i
editor Olly Duff, interviewed on Press Gazette:
 I’m optimistic for the future in terms of the appeal of print newspapers: they are tactile, curated, finishable, there’s an element of serendipity, they’re full of surprise… and it’s community as well – a group of like-minded people who gather every day, united by their curiosity. Papers will continue to evolve but they will be an important part of publishers’ portfolios for a long time to come."


David Higgerson on his blog
"To be fair, the Government has done a lot to help keep regional media upright during the pandemic, with a major advertising campaign. Now the spirit which made them step in with advertising needs to be applied to the way Government deals with local media on daily basis: The government might have lost step with large parts of the country, but local media hasn’t – as borne out by the relative reslience of print sales during the pandemic, and the remarkable loyal online audience growth seen in many places too."


Ian Hislop in The Times [£]: 
"When I became editor of Private Eye at 25, lots of middle-aged men were furious. Now I’m a ghastly middle-aged man myself and I think, 'They were right. How annoying'.”


Carole Cadwalladr on Twitter: 
"So. I’m in court again tomorrow. Because someone I investigated & reported on & who was subsequently found to have broken the law has decided to make me pay. For the crime of doing journalism...Clarification. I really didn’t mean that to sound like a bad Aaron Sorkin take or ‘I wield the sword of truth!’ type thing. It’s just literally true. I am *literally* being sued for doing my job. And I do literally face losing my home because of the state of Britain’s libel laws."


Grant Woodthorpe, executive director – investment at Mail Metro Media, on the launch of ECO2, a a carbon neutral, biodegradable green zine produced biannually in association with the Daily Mail, quoted by Newsworks:
“We know that ECO2 will be an important editorial contribution to the fight against environmental change and will give advertisers a safe, positive environment in which to show their eco-credibility to Daily Mail’s keenly environmentally-conscious audience.”


Ian Murray, executive director of the Society of Editors, in a statement after police dropped the investigation into Darren Grimes controversial interview with historian David Starkey:
“The Society welcomes the decision by Scotland Yard to drop the investigation into Darren Grimes. The investigation should never have taken place and, as the Society previously warned, it posed a serious threat to free speech and could have had a chilling effect on the media’s ability to interview controversial figures.”


Extract from former Financial Times editor Lionel Barber's diary published in the FT
"In 2009, the FT’s reporting from Dubai incurred the wrath of the authorities, prompting an unusual intervention by telephone from Prince Andrew, then the UK’s trade envoy, to my office. 

HRH the Duke of York: “Your man in Dubai, Simon Carr, is causing a lot of trouble.” 
LB: “You mean Simeon Kerr.” 
HRH: “Yes, Simon Kerr . . . Look, I’m just passing on a message . . . your man is causing a lot of problems.” 
LB: “Have you read any of Simeon’s articles from Dubai?” 
HRH: “No. Of course not.” 
LB: “Well, I’ve read every word that Simeon Kerr has written about Dubai and I don’t see a problem . .. ” 

The conversation ended shortly thereafter."

[£]=paywall

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