Media Quotes of the Week: Was Andrew Neil's vision for GB News bound to fail? to Taliban will force foreign journalists out of Afghanistan

Andrew Neil on Twitter: "It’s official: I have resigned as Chairman and Lead Presenter of GB News."

• Kelvin MacKenzie on Twitter: "Inevitable that @afneil would quit @GBNEWS as you can't have two captains on the bridge."

Jake Kanter in The Times [£]: "Two camps are said to have emerged at the channel. On one side of the divide are those who consider themselves traditional news journalists, who joined because of the pedigree of senior presenters including Neil and [Simon] McCoy. On the other is a growing roster of populist commentators, who under the leadership of [chief executive Angelos] Frangopoulos are making the station’s agenda more like Fox News."

James Ball in the New Statesman: "Neil’s vision for GB News appeared to be based sincerely on that belief: the channel tried to hire local journalists to report – or at least do talking head spots – from across the country for 'out of London' perspectives. The channel hired various presenters and pundits from the BBC and mainstream outfits. There was an attempt to be a mainstream but non-left channel. The result was, frankly, boring. The gap turned out not to exist – and so an amateurish channel with appalling lighting and sound, no half-hourly bulletins and horribly under-rehearsed presenters, producers and tech, was interesting to watch only as an example of how not to produce television."

Marina Hyde in the Guardian: "You’ll recall that Neil launched GB News with a lengthy series of broadsides at the 'metropolitan mindset' and the failures of the 'London media'. Can’t argue with a lot of that. And yet, it must be said that there has simply never, ever been more 'London media' behaviour than that we have witnessed at GB News since then. Backbiting, flouncing, courtly factionalism, seemingly daily resignations, the cancellation of one of its own presenters, briefing wars, declining to come back to work from the south of France for literally months – my dear, the sheer pompous luvviedom of this station has been absolutely unparalleled."

Daniel Finkelstein in The Times [£]: "Launching a new television station is hard, and I always thought GB News would find things tough. I was surprised they thought there were enough people wanting to watch programmes about cancel culture in the middle of the afternoon. How many viewers would be shouting through to the kitchen: 'I’ll come to dinner in a minute darling, but Dan Wootton is on. He’s just talking to Ann Widdecombe about lockdowns and I want to find out if she’s for them or against them'?"

Private Eye's Adam Mcqueen, interviewed by Press Gazette: "I keep saying to people who take photos of their favourite stories in Private Eye on the Wednesday when we come out and put them all over Twitter: this stuff’s really expensive. Every story that gets in that there’s probably six or seven that each journalist has looked into that haven’t actually come to anything, but you have to put a lot of resources into checking things out and seeing them through. In a lot of cases lawyers get involved, there have been injunctions and things that you ended up spending months and a hell of a lot of money on. And you need the resources to do that stuff. And it is much easier as a lot of publishers [have found out] just to get a load of people who’ve got opinions to come in and spout off about them and with that goes to the picture byline and the personal brand side of things."

BBC News reports: "A complaint by a journalist over 'a complete failure' by the Police Service of Northern Ireland to properly investigate an online threat to sexually attack her baby has been upheld. Patricia Devlin, a crime reporter with the Sunday World, took the case to the Police Ombudsman last year. Ms Devlin received the threat a year ago in a direct message to her Facebook account, signed in the name of neo-Nazi group Combat 18. Police Ombudsman, Marie Anderson, said the threat made against the journalist was 'repulsive'. She added that it was 'concerning that police failed to take measures to arrest the suspect at the earliest opportunity'."

Andrew Roth in the Observer: "For more than a decade, the Kremlin has been engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with Russia’s independent media. Outlets with independent journalists were periodically purged by their businessmen or state owners. Those journalists found new jobs, then founded new media, and sought other means to protect their work, sources and livelihood from the threat of a new government crackdown. But in the past year, since the protests in neighbouring Belarus, the arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and Vladimir Putin’s “resetting” of his presidential terms, the Kremlin is taking broader steps to bring the media and individual journalists to heel. Some think it’s possible to keep on reporting, but others see it as a death knell for the profession of journalism."

Ian Burrell in the i on the task of replacing Fran Unsworth at the BBC: "Being BBC director of news and current affairs is probably the most prestigious job in the British news industry, but in the age of social media it is close to becoming an impossible task. Of course, there will always be applicants for a role that comes with immense status and a £340,000 salary but, aside from that, it’s strangely unrewarding and surprisingly powerless. Much of the remit concerns making job cuts and withstanding the political controversies that result from the endless online dissection of the output of a 6,000-strong news division that serves 468m people around the world."

Jake Kanter in The Times [£]: "There is an atmosphere of fear and loathing at the BBC as demoralised news staff fret over creeping politicisation of senior roles, job cuts and a fresh assault on the licence fee. The Times has obtained a copy of the BBC’s 2021 employee survey, which provides a snapshot of the anxiety about the future among rank-and-file staff. Only 41 per cent of employees believe the BBC will succeed over the next three years, according to the survey completed in May."

 Los Angeles Times reports: "Journalists from the Etilaat Roz newspaper, Nemat Naqdi, 28, a video journalist, left, and Taqi Daryabi, 22, video editor, show their wounds. They said Taliban fighters tortured and beat them while they were in custody after being arrested while reporting on a women’s rights protest in Kabul, Afghanistan." (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Anthony Bellanger, the International Federation of Journalists' general secretary, interviewed in the Guardian: “The Taliban don’t want to make too many waves right now, but they will want to take control of everything, including the foreign press in Afghanistan. And as often happens in such situations, foreign journalists will be considered agents of foreign governments.  I believe what we will see emerge is an official media – a Taliban media – and no women. All other journalists will just disappear."

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Media Quotes of the Week: Coronavirus stories are bringing in readers but scaring off advertisers to warning over UK surveillance of journalists

Jim Waterson on Twitter: "Enormous traffic for Coronavirus stories but ad market was already weak, is now been pummelled, and advertisers are placing keyword blocks to stop ads on pandemic stories. This is all very bad for already struggling outlets.*

*This is obviously not the main concern for society."

Nadine Dorris on Twitter: "If you want to know how low a journalist can go, @DailyMailUK on my doorstep in the middle of my trying to deal with everything else. He opened the gate, knocked on the door, rang the bell. I hope he washes his hands. #Coronavirus."

• Mirror politics correspondent Mikey Smith on Twitter: "Absolutely nothing wrong with a journalist knocking on a public servant's door."

Ian Murray, executive director of the Society of Editors, welcoming the new Whitehall unit set up to counter Coronavirus-related fake news on social media: “The creation of the cross-Whitehall unit to identify disinformation on social media regarding the Covid-19 virus underscores where the dangers are for the public to be misinformed during this crisis. It is the mainstream media where news and information are edited that factual reports are to be found.”

Simon Jenkins in the Guardian on the Coronavirus: "Every medical expert I have heard on the subject is reasonable and calm. Not so politicians and the media. They love playing to the gallery, as they do after every health scare and terrorist incident. Front pages are outrageous. No BBC presenter seems able to avoid the subject. Wash hands to save the nation. The BBC must be sponsored by the soap industry."

Tim Shipman on Twitter: "Given the shortages developing in our great supermarkets, I am tempted to say, Britain, that you should definitely buy a newspaper this weekend. News, enlightenment and potentially dual use in a crisis..."

PPA managing director Owen Meredith welcoming the Budget announcement that from December 1 2020 digital publications, including magazines, journals, books and newspapers will be zero-rated for VAT: “Our tax system has failed to keep up with technology and recognise changing consumers habits in accessing news and information. I’m delighted the Chancellor has listened to our representations and acted to end this tax on reading. This tax cut will be good for consumers and publishers alike, it will promote innovation in paid-content models as well as investment in quality journalism."

Sports commentator Alan Green interviewed in The Times [£] about the BBC not reviewing his contract: “They have shown me very little respect in how that is ending. I feel a mixture of disappointment and anger. I don’t think it’s justified. I was basically told, ‘You don’t fit our profile.’ I got a fair idea of what they meant by just listening to the output over the last year or so. There isn’t an ageist, sexist, racist bone in my body. I only care about ‘Can somebody do the job?’ There are new people in favour. They match the requirements in terms of ‘bants’ — banter with presenters.”

John Simpson on Twitter: "I’ve warned for some years now that the concerted attacks on the BBC would end in its destruction. Only a determined few want this to happen. The rest are unthinkingly caught up in the mud-slinging, or feel powerless. If you want the BBC to survive, now’s the time to speak up."

International Federation of Journalists general secretary Anthony Bellanger in a statement calling on governments to ratify the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment to help reduce the level of violence against women journalists: "The level of violence facing women journalists is unacceptable. Once a state ratifies the Convention, it becomes legally binding and we expect women journalists to receive stronger support from their employer when they become a target of harassment and violence. We urge our affiliates to campaign nationally for a ratification of this desperately -needed convention."

• According to IFJ statistics, 65% of women journalists have experienced violence at work, either in newsrooms, in relation to their sources, at home, on the way home or online. It can take the form of physical attacks, unwanted touching, sexual comments, online abuse, threats and intimidations in all their forms.

Newsquest’s editorial director Toby Granville, speaking at the official launch of HM Courts and Tribunal Service’s (HMCTS) updated media guidance at the Old Bailey: "Our reporters on a daily basis challenge court orders and anonymity orders that are often incorrectly used to protect guilty defendants from publicity. Often orders are used incorrectly by lawyers who don’t always understand the law around anonymity which is regularly successfully challenged by our professional, qualified journalists. Without this level of expertise and qualified learning we are in a serious and perilous situation. A worse case for open justice is that we’re not even there to contest them in the first place and the public are censored from knowing the truth about what is going on in their community."

• Granville added that in order to ensure trained journalists are present in court, sustainable investment was urgently needed to enable increased coverage of cases – particularly in the magistrates’ courts. This could come from an expansion of a programme similar to the Local Democracy Scheme through the partnership publishers have with the BBC or through digital giants such as Google and Facebook funding such reporters.

Committee to Protect Journalists advocacy director Courtney Radsch in a statement after the U.K. Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office, which oversees surveillance by government agencies, released a report revealing authorities requested six warrants for surveillance that “would relate to journalistic confidential material” in 2018: “While we welcome the U.K. government’s disclosure of some information about its surveillance activities, the material that has been made public is far from sufficient. The Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office needs to provide much more detailed disclosures to help journalists in the U.K. understand who is investigating them and enable recourse in cases of abuse.”

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Media Quotes of the Week: Responsible journalists can be part of the Coronavirus solution to slavish backing of Boris makes a mockery of Telegraph

International Federation of Journalists general secretary Anthony Bellanger, in a statement: “The journalist's responsibility towards the public takes precedence over any other responsibility. Media can increase public awareness of the situation regarding the Coronavirus through reporting that educates, warns and informs properly on the problem. That way they can also be part of the solution. It’s in this kind of context when we have the opportunity to again demonstrate to citizens the value of quality, ethical journalism."

Society of Editors executive director Ian Murray in a statement on covering the Coronavirus: “It is only the mainstream media that provides edited news and information on this vital subject. This is too important an issue to be left to the vagaries of social media where conjecture, rumour and disinformation run rife. It is in the newsrooms of newspapers both national and regional, broadcast organisations and genuine online news outlets that every step is taken to ensure that the information produced is as accurate and fact-based as possible.”

The Times' Steven Swinford on Twitter: "Downing Street has agreed to end boycott of Today programme so ministers can go on air to discuss Coronavirus.  Lee Cain, No 10's director of communications, told aides he had agreed with BBC that there was a 'public interest' in having ministers on national broadcaster. Cain said he agreed to end Today boycott after talks with Fran Unsworth, BBC’s head of news, and Katy Searle, head of BBC Westminster... At present boycott only lifted so ministers can discuss Cornavirus."

The Reuters Institute: "The BBC is by far the most widely used source of news in the UK both online and offline, and it is one of the most highly trusted sources of news. It is also more widely used as a source of news than many of its peers among other public service media. According to the BBC itself, it also reaches more than 400 million people globally with news every week. The BBC is very widely used across the political spectrum. It is the most popular source of news among both Conservative and Labour voters, and among both Leave and Remain voters."

Iliffe Media editorial director Ian Carter, as quoted by HoldTheFrontPage: "It’s ironic that the Be Kind trend is now being used as another stick to beat journalists with. I sat on the Kent Online newsdesk this week and within the space of a couple of hours three people had mentioned Caroline Flack when haranguing our news editors. In each case, it was an attempt to have a court story removed. I received an email the same day claiming that publishing the names and addresses of people in court cases amounted to ‘bullying’ and again urging us to ‘Be Kind’. I find it quite offensive that people are attempting to use the Caroline Flack scenario for their own ends and we are letting them know so."

Society of Editors executive director Ian Murray launching a new campaign for 'real news' against the use of fake newspapers and news sites and the rise of partisan non-media operations: "We are increasingly alarmed by reports of taxpayer-funded money being spent on attempts by public bodies and others to ape the work of mainstream media in acting as their own unbalanced and unchecked publishers. It is not the job of official communications departments to circumvent the media in favour of pushing out their own often one-sided ‘news’ via fake newspapers and social media channels. The Society strongly believes that political parties, local councils and police press offices should not be in competition with the mainstream media."

Alan Rusbridger on Twitter: "How to spot a lead story."

Roy Greenslade in the Guardian: "The Daily Telegraph is a newspaper with a great past, a pathetic present and an uncertain future. Its ownership is in doubt. Its profits have plummeted. Its editorial slavishness to the prime minister has turned it into such a laughing stock that it is now widely known as the “Daily Boris”...What irony! The Telegraph’s slavish support for a comic journalist has helped turn the newspaper into a joke."

• Hugo Drayton on Twitter: "Of course, this is viewed through the Guardian's special prism; but as a former MD of the Telegraph group, and a champion of newsbrands, this is terribly sad: 'Slavish support for Boris Johnson has turned the Telegraph into a joke' | Roy Greenslade."

Media Quotes of the Week: Why the killers of Jamal Khashoggi must be bought to justice to making magazines in smokey rooms 40 years ago

International Federation of Journalists general secretary Anthony Bellanger on the anniversary of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul: “It's been a year since Khashoggi's murder and there’s still no justice for those who ordered and executed his murder. We will continue demanding an international and independent investigation on this crime and rejecting any kind of political cover-up of it. If the perpetrators are not held to account, oppressive governments of the world will see it as a green light to commit crimes against a journalist with impunity. We won’t allow it.”

The Washington Post [£] confronts Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi: "He should stop offering half-truths and accept full responsibility for ordering the murder. We don’t expect that to happen anytime soon. History will show that our lost friend and colleague Jamal was on the right side of the debate that Mohammed bin Salman thought, mistakenly, he could win with a bone saw."

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex in a statement on the decision by the Duchess of Sussex to sue the Mail on Sunday for the misuse of private information, infringement of copyright and breach of the Data Protection Act: "Though this action may not be the safe one, it is the right one. Because my deepest fear is history repeating itself. I’ve seen what happens when someone I love is commoditised to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces."

Sunday Times Style [£] columnist Charlotte Edwardes on lunching with Boris Johnson: "Under the table, I feel Johnson’s hand on my thigh. He gives it a squeeze. His hand is high up my leg and he has enough inner flesh beneath his fingers to make me sit suddenly upright."

Manchester Evening News political and investigations editor Jennifer Williams in the Observer: “I keep being asked when I’m moving to London as my work’s getting known ‘nationally. I’d rather ask a different question: why aren’t there more reporters like me all over the country? Why are places outside London not properly represented?"

John Sweeney @johnsweeneyroar on Twitter: "After 17 years I'm leaving the BBC. It's high time to make trouble elsewhere. First stop, Malta. With @carlobonini and @Manwel_Delia I've written Murder On The Malta Express: Who Killed Daphne Caruana Galizia, to be published on October 14 by Midsea Books. Thanks to my great pals at BBC. Together we helped free 5 cot death mums starting wi Sally Clark, jailed on wrong evidence of Prof Sir Roy Meadow. Trump got challenged over his links with Russian mob, Putin over the shoot-down of MH17 and I yelled at Church of Scientology."

Alan Rusbridger in the Observer:  "The new elitism is a deadly form of condescension. Sun readers aren’t there to be informed. Entertained, yes. Inflamed, yes. Infuriated: certainly. But not well informed. Interestingly, the Mail, under a new editor, is quietly turning itself into a much more nuanced paper, willing to do justice to more than one side of an argument. An editorial on [Supreme Court president] Hale was notably reasonable – miles away from the finger-jabbing fury of the previous regime. Sales seem to be holding up just fine (and, I’m told, more than 200 advertisers have returned)."

Black journalists and broadcasters in a letter to the Guardian in support of presenter Naga Munchetty over the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit finding she had breached guidelines in a comment on President Trump's 'send them home' jibe at four congresswoman: "To suggest a journalist can 'talk about her own experiences of racism' while withholding a critique on the author of racism (in this case President Trump) has the ludicrous implication that such racism may be legitimate and should be contemplated as such. While we stand in support of Munchetty, the consequences of this decision are widespread with implications for the entire media landscape in the UK and those who work within it."

BBC director general Tony Hall responds by overturning the ECU complaint, as reported by BBC News: "I have also examined the complaint itself. It was only ever in a limited way that there was found to be a breach of our guidelines. These are often finely balanced and difficult judgements. But, in this instance, I don't think Naga's words were sufficient to merit a partial uphold of the complaint around the comments she made. There was never any sanction against Naga and I hope this step makes that absolutely clear."

Ex-Smash Hits editor David Hepworth in InPublishing on making magazines 40 years ago: "The magazine was put together in those days, like all magazines, in smokey rooms made noisy by the clacking of typewriters, the ringing of immobile telephones and the arrival and departure of motorcycle messengers... The layouts were taken up to the compositors in Peterborough by a retired printer called Len who used to come every day and return on the train. You often didn’t get an idea of what things were going to look like until it was too late to change them...In 1979, most magazines were predominantly black and white and cover mounted gifts were no more valuable than flexi discs and badges...nobody had picture researchers or stylists or executive art directors or car accounts or off-sites in foreign climes or PowerPoint. Nobody talked about pitches or copy approval. PRs didn’t 'reach out' and would have died of embarrassment if it had been suggested that they remained in the room as an interview was going on."

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Media Quotes of the Week: Booing of journalists at Farage rallies shows we've been Trumped to if Assange is jailed are investigative reporters next?

Lewis Goodall in the Observer: "People have spoken of the fear of the Americanisation (by which they really mean the Trumpification) of British politics. I followed Farage from his first rally to the last and I can assure them, it is already here. The tenor of the rallies, the rhetoric from the stage, the way the party’s messages are communicated. The bitterness, the anger, the contempt of the crowd, the boos for journalists."

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, in a statement welcoming the indication that the High Court is set to quash the warrants against No Stone Unturned documentary makers Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey: "We welcome the decision of the High Court and eagerly await the formal quashing of the warrants on Friday. Three High Court judges have vindicated the stance taken by Trevor, Barry and the NUJ. We have said all along that there was no legal basis for the searches and the intrusion into the family life of our members."

Dame Liz Forgan, in the Guardian on former Ham & High editor Gerald Isaaman, who has died aged 85: “Gerry Isaaman is what you mean when you mourn the loss of local and regional papers. He knew his patch, posh and poor. He was a player in local affairs but also a formidable critic of local politicians. He thought global and acted local. And he hired and trained an extraordinary band of future politicians, scholars, and national figures in culture and the media.”

Hunter Davies in the Camden New Journal on Gerald Isaaman:  “Gerry was ‘Mr Hampstead’. He had a finger in every pie, knew everyone and everything, and even when he didn’t he knew someone who did. But he didn’t just know the gen, he got involved. He was in many ways the last of the old editors who saw themselves as part of the fabric of the community, with a social conscience, a political nose, who was not just passing through on the way to Fleet Street, to better things, but felt he was here to stay, to serve his parish, his readers, the locality.”

Reach's regionals digital editor-in-chief Alison Gow asked by Press Gazette what she was most proud of: "Playing a small role in the digital transformation of our regional newsrooms. Working in any disrupted industry, at any level, is hard! You can’t ever be complacent or think 'that’s it, we’ve done it' because the world shifts, or what you know of it shifts, and you start the process again. I can’t believe how far we’ve travelled, culturally and operationally – I don’t know what will come next but I feel we are better journalists now. We listen more, react faster, have bigger audiences we talk to more openly and regularly than ever – as a result of the tumult of recent years."

Sky's special correspondent  Alex Crawford: "The Sky News crew - clearly identified as journalists - was deliberately targeted and attacked by Syrian regime forces using military drones to pinpoint our location, before launching a series of strikes."

Anthony Bellanger, IFJ general secretary: "We are appalled by this deliberate targeting of our colleagues from Sky News and we remind President Bashar al Assad that journalism is not a crime and that he should abide by his international commitment towards press freedom. The Syrian president should be providing the media with the necessary safety to carry out their duties, not treat them as terrorists to be attacked. "

Index on Censorship chief executive Jodie Ginsberg, interviewed by Ray Snoddy in InPublishing magazine, on Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt's plans to join with Canada to launch a worldwide campaign to protect journalists and the media, promoted by a conference in London in July: “I am always cautious about these kinds of initiatives because I worry they are more about talk than action. We haven’t seen a response from the UK on Saudi Arabia on the Jamal Khashoggi killing. There has been condemnation but we haven’t seen any further action or demonstration that perhaps the UK won’t do business with, or otherwise support, countries that systematically harm their journalists.”

Ben Woods in the Sunday Times [£]: "National newspaper the i and more than 200 regional titles could be auctioned off as the owner of JPI Media starts hunting for buyers. A group of bondholders led by GoldenTree Asset Management has appointed bankers at Stella EOC to lay the groundwork for a potential sale of part, or all, of the business formerly known as Johnston Press."

Sabine Dolan, interim executive director of Reporters Without Borders North America bureau: “The latest charges against Assange could be truly disastrous for the future of national security reporting in the United States. We have seen the Espionage Act used far too many times against journalistic sources already. RSF worries that this extraordinary measure by the Trump administration could set a dangerous precedent that could be used to prosecute journalists and publishers in the future for engaging in activities that investigative reporting relies on.”

Alan Rusbridger in the Observer: "Assange is a problematic figure in many ways. But the attempt to lock him up under the Espionage Act is a deeply troubling move that should serve as a wake-up call to all journalists. You may not like Assange, but you’re next."

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