Thursday 30 September 2021

Media Quotes of the Week: From don't blame the media for petrol crisis to Trump sues NY Times and reporters over 'insidious plot' to obtain tax records




Iliffe Media editorial director Ian Carter in an opinion article on Kent Online: "For all those complaining about media ‘scaremongering’, ask yourself one simple question - would you really prefer to live in a society where inconvenient truths are hidden from you? Where the media deliberately censors information because it doesn’t feel the public can be trusted with it? Maybe you would; I wouldn’t. Where would that end? Don’t report incidents of serious crime in case it deters people from leaving the house? It’s also obvious that the moment the first garage ran low on fuel it would spread across social media networks at breakneck pace - and then it wouldn’t be long before the mainstream media were getting it in the neck for not warning people...

"Bashing the MSM is something everyone in the industry has got used to and by and large we take it on the chin.In this instance, I think remaining silent would be a disservice to readers - there are people with questions to answer about why we are where we are, and by choosing to scapegoat the media, the spotlight is in the wrong place. The fuel crisis is a complex, concerning scenario involving Covid, Brexit, the logistics of transporting hazardous materials and salary levels. Traducing it to simply ‘media scaremongering’ is plain wrong."



YouGov on Twitter: "
Britons hold the media most responsible for petrol stations running out of fuel."
  • The media - 47% say are most to blame
  • The government - 23%
  • The public - 22%


Henry Winter in The Times [£]:
"Here we go again, footballers should be seen but not heard. So says the Spectator following Gary Neville’s observations about the paucity of political leadership, whether red or blue. Open your eyes. Footballers like Neville, Marcus Rashford and Raheem Sterling feel and suffer more of life’s vicissitudes in this great country than columnists playing at life rather than experiencing it."


Andrew Neil interviewed in the Daily Mail on his departure from GB News:
"The reason I am quite emotional is that I’m angry. I thought after ten years at the Economist, 11 years at The Sunday Times, the launch of Sky Television and Sky News, ten years as publisher of The Scotsman and, for 25 years working to become the BBC’s premier interviewer, GB News would be the final big career move and then I’d pack it all in. I am angry. I’m also quite unforgiving of this chief executive and the board. They are the ones who put me through this – the disrespect. Why pay me all that money? Why make me chairman? Why make me lead presenter and then just not listen? 

"So I’m angry that what should have been my last big media gig – which, if we’d made it work, could have been great – turned out to be the worst eight months of my career, the worst by far, from early January to last weekend when I finally got free of everything. Don’t forget, I’ve been on the IRA hit list twice. I’ve had special protection – anti-terrorist forces outside my house. I’ve been on the jihadists’ hit list. This feels worse."


Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the NUJ, in a statement on the 20th anniversary of the murder of Sunday World journalist Martin O'Hagan“The failure of the authorities to properly investigate the brutal murder of Martin O’Hagan is a stain on the history of policing in Northern Ireland. The passage of time does not obliterate the need for an independent investigation drawn from outside the UK to investigate the murder and the subsequent police failings...Martin would be horrified by the recent threats to journalists across Northern Ireland. The use of social media to undermine journalists is a disturbing trend but Martin would be unsurprised by the cowardice of keyboard warriors, having challenged so many who operated in the shadows during his career."


International Federation of Journalists general secretary, Anthony Bellanger, in a statement after a report published by Yahoo News that the CIA allegedly planned to kidnap and assassinate Julian Assange as they feared he was planning to escape to Russia from the Ecuadorian embassy in London: 
“If these accusations are true, it would cast a long shadow over all independent journalism and they would once again prove that extraditing Assange to the United States would put his life at serious risk. We are calling for a full investigation and for the British authorities to release him immediately."


New York Times
reports:
 "Former President Donald J. Trump filed a lawsuit on Tuesday accusing Mary L. Trump, The New York Times and three of its reporters of conspiring in an 'insidious plot' to improperly obtain his confidential tax records and exploit their use in news articles and a book. The lawsuit claims that the Times reporters, as part of an effort to obtain the tax records, relentlessly sought out Ms. Trump, the former president’s niece, and persuaded her 'to smuggle the records out of her attorney’s office' and turn them over to The Times."

New York Times investigative reporter Susanne Craig responds on Twitter: "I knocked on Mary Trump’s door. She opened it. I think they call that journalism."

  • In 2019, three Times reporters — David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner — were awarded a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting for articles about Trump’s taxes. In announcing the award, the Pulitzer judges called the work “an exhaustive 18-month investigation” that “revealed a business empire riddled with tax dodges.”
[£]=paywall


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