Ben Macintyre in The Times [£] "Bill Bryson is laying down his pen and retiring from books. The funny, insightful, amiable, furry and hugely popular American writer will be missed, and nowhere more than here, for he is an alumnus of that unsung university of literary talent: The Times subs’ desk. Sub-editors are the boiler room engineers of newspapers, the experts who take out the mistakes, fit the headlines, correct the spelling, improve the grammar and frequently save people like me from looking extremely stupid. They can be pedantic. They are essential. They love words. And they sometimes emerge as great writers...the most celebrated Times sub-turned-writer was Graham Greene, who joined The Times in 1926. The world of the sub-editor was somewhat different then. Tea and cake were laid out by servants at exactly 5 every afternoon. "
Hermione Lee in her new biography of Tom Stoppard, who worked as a reporter and sub-editor on regional newspapers in Bristol before becoming a playwright and screenwriter: "Subbing was less exciting to him than reporting, but it taught him 'speed, accuracy and concision' and he was quick to pick up advice from older journalists."
Rose Wild in The Times [£]: "Headline writing, in which complex sets of events have to be encapsulated into a painfully restricted space, often under intense time pressure, is an under-appreciated art and our headline writers rarely get the credit they are due. In that spirit, I posted a tweet two weeks ago praising the headline, 'Only a plonker would call time on sozzled bonking', on the column I’d written about obsolete words."
Charlotte Tobitt on Press Gazette: "Telegraph Media Group is bringing its print subbing back in-house less than four years after outsourcing production work to PA. The publisher said the move was part of its investment into its subscription-first strategy and journalism as it could best serve subscribers across its products by centralising production expertise in one place."
Martin Bell interviewed in The Sunday Times [£]: "By the time I left the BBC I was earning about £60,000. It was never about the money. When I read about today’s news stars I think, 'No one deserves that amount, however good they are.' A lot of it is just reading words off an autocue. It’s not like they’re risking their lives. I’m not angry about it, but I just wonder how they can justify the salary to themselves."
Statement on the NUJ website calling for justice for investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia who was assassinated in Malta in October 2017: "Three years later we, the undersigned 19 international free expression, anti-corruption, civic participation, and journalists’ organisations, once again demand an end to impunity for this heinous attack. As alleged murder mastermind, Yorgen Fenech, is facing criminal proceedings and the three defendants charged with carrying out the contract killing Alfred Degiorgio, George Degiorgio and Vincent Muscat, are awaiting trial, we recall that justice delayed is justice denied. We call for thorough and effective criminal investigations and prosecutions that ensure the whole truth is uncovered and all those responsible for Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder are held to account in court."
Damian Collins MP in The Times [£] on plans in Australia to make the tech giants pay news publishers for using their content: "Funnily enough, Facebook and Google have both responded by threatening to remove all news from their platforms if Australia goes ahead, demonstrating just how much they value a free press. For what it’s worth, in my years of holding platforms to account for enabling disinformation, they always say something is technically and economically impossible, until it suddenly isn’t. I hope that Australia pushes on, regardless of the tech giants’ bullying; and that following the CMA’s [Competition and Markets Authority] report, the UK Government establishes a similar code of conduct. We must uphold our reputation as a champion of the free press – at home as much as abroad."
Alan Rusbridger on Press Gazette: "Criticise the tech giants all you like – they deserve a great deal of scrutiny and a fair amount of blame – but also learn from them. That means using them in your personal, as well as professional, lives. And being curious as to why more than 2bn people are on Facebook; or 330m on Twitter; or 430m on Reddit. They must be doing something right."
Donald Trump talking to supporters in Arizona, as reported by The Hill: “You turn on CNN, that’s all they cover. Covid, Covid, pandemic, Covid, Covid, Covid… you know why? They’re trying to talk everybody out of voting. People aren’t buying it, CNN. You dumb bastards.”
Guardian Northern England correspondent Josh Halliday on Twitter: "Dear news organisations, please invest outside London. I know Brexit was a moment but this too feels like a moment: when else have regional leaders had so much political capital? If you want to know what’s going on here - to be really plugged in - then you simply have to be here."
Stephen Naylor on Twitter: "Also - crazily - this is the moment the BBC are axing so many regional news staff, including some of their most familiar and well known journalists. There’s hardly a worse time for the ‘national’ broadcaster to be doing that."
[£]=paywall
No comments:
Post a Comment