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.”

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Media Quotes of the Week: From the journalists who have more Twitter followers than their papers to why does anyone still pay for the Guardian?

From a survey by Newsworks: "The Daily Telegraph's football correspondent Henry Winter has 652,000 followers, more than the 427,000 people who follow the main Telegraph account. Likewise, The Times columnist Caitlin Moran's 490,000 followers on Twitter is nearly three times the 172,000 people who follow The Times."

Steve Dyson on HoldTheFrontPage on Newsquest's subbing hub in Newport: "For what it’s worth, my opinion is that the Welsh unit is not yet good enough at handling multiple weeklies’ pages – let alone those of prestigious daily titles like the Northern Echo, Bradford  Telegraph & Argus and The Press, York."

Glenn Greenwald on his new venture First Look Media , in the Guardian: "I think I see us as a model not the model. There are different ways that journalism can innovate and get better. But I hope that some of the things that we do will inspire people to work out how to do journalism the way that they want. And to be fearless."

Les Hinton ‏@leshinton on Twitter: "Surprised at muted Fleet St follows of @guardian story on UK Yahoo webcam spying. It’s extraordinary. People really care."

Jeremy Clarkson on Piers Morgan in the Sunday Times [£]: "He’s trying to argue his CNN show failed because the Americans didn’t take kindly to his misguided attempt to spark a debate on gun control. Nonsense. His show failed because the viewers hated him. Everyone hates him. And that’s a big problem when you are trying to play the fame game. You can upset some of the people some of the time and survive — thrive even. But if you upset all of the people all of the time, you will fail. And he has. And I couldn’t help but notice that as the news broke, it stopped raining and the sun came out."

Piers Morgan ‏@piersmorgan on Twitter: "Dear old @JeremyClarkson warned I wouldn't like what he's written about me tomorrow. I just read it, and LOVED IT! Quite fabulously bitchy."

Dame Colette Bowe, outgoing chair of Ofcom, quoted in the Sunday Times [£]: “I would say I do not think the press should be subject to statutory regulation in any form whatsoever. I would regard that as a grave error for this country and this society.”

The New York Times runs a correction 161 years after it ran the story that inspired the Oscar-winning film '12 Years A Slave': "An article on Jan. 20, 1853, recounting the story of Solomon Northup, whose memoir “12 Years a Slave” became a movie 160 years later that won the best picture Oscar at the 86th Academy Awards on Sunday night, misspelled his surname as Northrop. And the headline misspelled it as Northrup. The errors came to light on Monday after a Twitter user pointed out the article in The Times archives.”

Grey Cardigan on TheSpinAlley: "I know I’m always banging on about this, but the stupidity of recent generations of newspaper managements in pursuing an imaginary digital revenue source at the expense of their print products which still, to this day, make 90%-plus of the profits, is simply baffling. Why would you strangle the golden goose? Why not do the sensible thing and maintain the quality of your core product while exploring digital options? What happens when that core title goes under? How many people will be flocking to the Lancashire Evening Post website when there is no more Lancashire Evening Post? It just doesn’t make sense."

News UK chief Mike Darcey speaking at the Digital Media Strategies conference , as quoted by the Guardian: "Chasing online advertising  revenue at scale requires a deep, free online proposition and this in turn undermines the incentive for people to pay for print editions. The Guardian web proposition is so good I wonder why anyone continues to buy the Guardian edition in print at all. They must be very wealthy people."

Guardian Media Group chief excutive Andrew Miller, also at the Digital Media Strategies conference, as quoted by journalism.co.uk : "If we could do a paywall of course we’d do it. We’d love to, but that horse has bolted."

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Quotes of the Week: From make that two Royal Charters to Santorini and the Loveson Inquiry

The Newspaper Society on the industry's draft Royal Charter on press regulation: "It is a workable, practical way swiftly to deliver the Leveson recommendations, which the industry accepts, without any form of state-sponsored regulation that would endanger freedom of speech. It has widespread backing across the industry. It will deliver a system of regulation which will provide real protection for the public."

Hacked Off responds: "This desperate move by editors and proprietors – rejecting the Royal Charter agreed last month by all parties in Parliament and due to be approved by the Queen in days – is only the latest proof that most of the industry has learned no lessons from the Leveson experience. They are not sorry for the abuses exposed at the inquiry, or for the further abuses exposed almost weekly since, and they do not accept the need for real change."

The Guardian in a leader: "Like the Schleswig-Holstein question, the few people who still understand the arguments about the post-Leveson royal charter are dead, mad or past caring." 

Fiona Richmond in the Telegraph: “I was also so upset with Steve Coogan...During the lunch I asked, given that he had been part of the Leveson Inquiry and strongly complained about invasion of privacy, why he thought it was acceptable putting me in scenes that never happened: wasn’t it an invasion of my privacy? I never, for example, took part in orgies, or a threesome. But it didn’t seem to matter to him in the slightest." 

The Daily Mail in a leader: "The arrest of three civilian police workers for revealing that their elected commissioner was lavishing taxpayers' money on unwarranted trips in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes is a truly chilling story of how freedom of expression is being suppressed in this country...It's the kind of behaviour we normally associate with tyrants, but since the Leveson inquiry effectively criminalised unauthorised contacts between journalists and public officials, the police seem to think that such harassment is acceptable. The implications for democracy, our open society and the public's right to know could not be more grave."

UKIP leader Nigel Farage interviewed in the West Sussex Gazette: " I am mortified that in a smoke filled room in Westminster at half past two in the morning the Lib Dem and Labour agenda was agreed to by David Cameron and we’re heading towards state regulation of the press, and what we know with all forms of state regulation is that it becomes costly bureaucratic and effectively puts out of the game many of the smaller and medium sized players." 

The Guardian in a leader: "The overall situation relating to press freedom is by no means uniformly bleak. The country's appalling defamation laws, which led to London being treated as the libel capital of the world, have finally and historically been reformed – the work of a determined group of lawyers, peers, MPs and human rights organisations. Speech in Britain should be notably freer as a result. But at the same time there are justifiable concerns about attempts to criminalise some forms of unauthorised disclosure or whistleblowing. And we share the anxieties many media organisations have about the prospect of unreportable arrests." 

Boston Globe photographer John Tlumacki quoted in Time about covering the Boston Marathon bombings: "I was so shook up about it — I was speechless when I was there [on scene]. My eyes were swelling up behind my camera. We use a camera as a defense but I was shaken when I got back, just scanning the pictures. The other sad part was that I took my shoes off because they were covered in blood from walking on the sidewalk taking pictures."

IPCC deputy chair Deborah Glass, quoted by the Guardian: "We will never know what would have happened had Surrey police carried out an investigation into the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone in 2002. Phone hacking was a crime and this should have been acted upon, if not in 2002, then later, once the News of the World's widespread use of phone hacking became a matter of public knowledge and concern. We have not been able to uncover any evidence, in documentation or witness statements, of why and by whom that decision was made: former senior officers, in particular, appear to have been afflicted by a form of collective amnesia in relation to the events of 2002."

Lawyers Harbottle and Lewis in emails sent to the Mail on Sunday about their client Rolf Harris: "There is no public interest in publishing such an article as is entirely self-evident following publication of the Leveson report."

Henry Winter on Barcelona and Real Madrid being thrashed in the first legs of the Champions League semi-finals, in the Telegraph: "Nobody expected the Spanish inhibition." 

Hacked Associated Press Twitter account:  @AP The Associated Press: "Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured."

Santorini

The Mail in a leader on the affair of Leveson lawyers David Sherborne and Carine Patry Hoskins: "When the affair began is unclear. They say it didn't start until after Leveson reported last November, but admit they went on holiday to the romantic Greek island of Santorini last August. They claim - with a straight face - their relationship was then still platonic. But even if there was no pillow talk, it beggars belief they wouldn't have discussed Leveson over the odd glass of Retsina."

Rowan Pelling in the Telegraph: "The self-restraint of Gandhi, who slept alongside naked virgins to test his commitment to celibacy, is as nothing compared to the iron willpower of David Sherborne and Carine Patry Hoskins."

Rupert Murdoch ‏@rupertmurdoch on Twitter: "Ho! Ho! Leverson becomes Loverson! Can affirm Santorini very romantic."

Lord Justice Leveson on Carine Patry Hoskins, quoted in the Telegraph: "Save for some proof reading in the final few days before publication, she did not see and was not involved in any discussions about the other sections of the report or, indeed, in any of my eventual recommendations. There was simply no room for a 'breach of confidence or other conspiracy' as a result of personal relations between her and Mr Sherborne.”

Football focus: Is this Simon Heffer in disguise?

Most posts on football match reports usually slag off the manager, individual players or wind up opposing fans but on telegraph.co.uk you get your use of English corrected.

Henry Winter on the Leeds versus Arsenal FA Cup tie last night: "The atmosphere was electric. Leeds fans became particularly enervated when Arshavin went to ground far too easily, prompting chants of "are you Walcott in disguise?". Then they began twirling white scarves above their heads, generating a marvellous sight to accompany the unebbing noise."

Underwater-adventurer posts on Winter's match report: Usage Note: Sometimes people mistakenly use enervate to mean "to invigorate" or "to excite" by assuming that this word is a close cousin of the verb energize. In fact enervate does not come from the same source as energize (Greek energos, "active"). It comes from Latin nervus, "sinew." Thus enervate means "to cause to become 'out of muscle'," that is, "to weaken or deplete of strength."

Maybe it's Simon Heffer in disguise.