Media Quotes of the Week: How a free press stopped drug companies ripping off the NHS to oh to have been a cricket correspondent in the 1950s

The Times [£] in a leader: "Record fines of more than £260 million have been imposed on drug companies that ripped off the NHS by vastly increasing the cost of life-saving medicines. They were imposed after The Times exposed the scandal, underlining the importance of a free press in reporting wrongdoing and holding cheats to account. Thanks to years of dogged investigation by Billy Kenber, a senior reporter, the price-hiking and collusion by the drug company Auden McKenzie and others to raise the cost of hydrocortisone tablets from 70p to £88 a packet was exposed in detail. As a result, the law has been changed and those who swindled the NHS for almost a decade have been named and shamed.

"But for a free press and a determination to uncover scandals hidden by official complacency and aggressive legal threats, the drug companies could have continued this exploitation for years. Those who attack the press for its 'negative' reporting should be grateful that our liberties and our standards are safeguarded by the tradition of holding everyone to account."

The Guardian reports: "The editor of the Financial Times is one of more than 180 editors, investigative reporters and other journalists around the world who were selected as possible candidates for surveillance by government clients of the surveillance firm NSO Group, the Guardian can reveal. Roula Khalaf, who became the first female editor in the newspaper’s history last year, was selected as a potential target throughout 2018. Her number is included in a leaked list of mobile phone numbers selected for possible surveillance by clients of NSO, an Israeli firm that manufactures spyware and sells it to governments.

"Its principal product, Pegasus, is capable of compromising a phone, extracting all of the data stored on the device and activating its microphone to eavesdrop on conversations. Other journalists who were selected as possible candidates for surveillance by NSO’s clients work for some of the world’s most prestigious media organisations. They include the Wall Street Journal, CNN, the New York Times, Al Jazeera, France 24, Radio Free Europe, Mediapart, El País, Associated Press, Le Monde, Bloomberg, Agence France-Presse, the Economist, Reuters and Voice of America."

• Committee to Protect Journalists deputy executive director Robert Mahoney in a statement: "This report shows how governments and companies must act now to stop the abuse of this spyware which is evidently being used to undermine civil liberties, not just counter terrorism and crime. No one should have unfettered power to spy on the press, least of all governments known to target journalists with physical abuse and legal reprisals.”

The Sunday Times [£] in a leader on the investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office into who leaked CCTV footage to the Sun of Matt Hancock and his aide: "The ICO’s rules, strangely, say anyone reporting concerns to the media loses whistleblowing protections. This is absurd. Had Mr Hancock’s behaviour been reported to senior officials in his department, or even the police, the result would have been a quiet word. His hypocrisy would have remained under wraps and the public would have been none the wiser. The public interest would not have been served. Most genuine whistleblowing is to newspapers. The ICO, after these wrongheaded raids, needs to understand that."

Gavin Millar Q.C. in the Sun: "Like any state investigation into a possible criminal offence — and especially a minor one like this — there has to be a public interest in using these sorts of coercive state powers.  And the use has to be compatible with the fundamental rights of the whistleblowers and the journalists. In a case of high-value public-interest journalism like this, neither of these conditions is even remotely made out.  This is heavy-handed and misconceived state action of the sort that, in the long run, harms all of us and our democracy."

Kelvin MacKenzie on Twitter: "Correctly the Sun is outraged by efforts to find the source of the Hancock photos. Shame they weren't bothered a few years back when Rupert Murdoch decided to hand over sources AND 22 Sun journalists to the prosecutors to save himself from a corporate charge. Pass the sickbag."

Laura Kuenssberg in her BBC 2 interview with Dominic Cummings: "So you are suggesting that the Prime Minister of this country calls the Telegraph newspaper, that he used to be a columnist for, he calls them his real boss?"

Cummings: "Correct."

Duncan Campbell and Duncan Campbell in the Guardian: "Here we go again. Nearly 50 years ago one of us was arrested under the Official Secrets Act for working on a story for Time Out magazine, where the other one of us was the news editor. This led to the so-called ABC case, named after fellow reporter Crispin Aubrey, a brave ex-soldier whistleblower called John Berry, and the aforesaid Campbell. A lengthy Old Bailey trial followed in 1978 and, with it, a major discrediting of the use of the act against the press...The Home Office now wants harder and more extensive secrecy laws that would have the effect of deterring sources, editors and reporters, making them potentially subject to uncontrolled official bans not approved by a court, and punished much more severely if they do not comply."

London Evening Standard's retiring political editor Joe Murphy in a comment article in the paper: "Friends tell me that my departure is the 'end of an era'. In one respect that is true. I am the last daily political editor who did not go to university, having grabbed a local paper job instead. In those days nearly all the print political editors were non-graduates, including George Jones of the Telegraph, the great Gordon Greig of the Mail and the legendary PA man, Chris Moncrieff. Only the snooty Guardian and the BBC insisted on degrees. How cruel we are to our children when we preach social mobility but make them run up £50,000 of debt for a piece of paper that isn’t needed for my job, nor for most others."

Guto Harri, the GB News presenter suspended after taking the knee on air, in  The Sunday Times [£]: “I joined, part-time but with an ongoing commitment, because I liked and trusted those in charge and supported the broad vision. But the channel is rapidly becoming an absurd parody of what it proclaimed to be. Rather than defending free speech and confronting cancel culture, it has set out to replicate it on the far right. GB News may yet find its bearings but it’s hard to see how you champion the best in Britain when you endorse contempt for one of our national sides in a championship final."

International Federation of Journalists general secretary Anthony Bellanger in a statement after Dutch investigative crime reporter Peter R de Vries died from his injuries nine days after being shot in the street: "The loss of Peter is devastating for press freedom in Europe. He is the 3rd journalist killed this year on the continent. The Dutch government must send a clear message that freedom of the press is not negotiable and that there should be no impunity for the killing of journalists."

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, quoted byBBC News, said Peter R de Vries was: "Afraid of nothing and no one...We owe it to Peter R de Vries to ensure that justice takes its course."

The Times [£] on the death of cricket writer John Woodcock: "During his time as correspondent, the life of a broadsheet cricket writer was usually a leisurely affair. Not long after his appointment by The Times on a salary of £900 a year (plus an annual £52 cost-of-living bonus) he set out for Australia on board SS Orsova for the 1954-55 Ashes series. In his luggage was a new lightweight suit, made to measure by JC Wells (not quite Savile Row, but nearby) at the paper’s expense. The trip took three weeks in which he was untroubled by communication with the office. He filed 400 words when the ship docked for a stopover at Ceylon and another 400 when it landed at Fremantle, Western Australia."

 [£]=paywall