Media Quotes of the Week: From Rusbridger, Barber and MacKenzie on Paul Dacre chairing Ofcom to saving court reporting in the digital age

Alan Rusbridger on Twitter: "The Government seems determined to impose the 'unappointable' Paul Dacre on Ofcom. That means, I'm afraid, that Ofcom will no longer be seen as independent from Government. Big price to pay."

Lionel Barber on Twitter: "If Tories don’t like the conclusion of one independent committee hearing, then they move the goalposts. Applies as much to Dacre on Ofcom job as Paterson on parliamentary standards and lobbying. Slow strangulation of representative government."

Kevin MacKenzie in his a spokesman said column: "In a saga that has lasted longer than finding a decent manager for Spurs I am pleased to report that Boris is still determined to make Paul Dacre, the talented ex-Editor of the Daily Mail, chairman of the media regulator Ofcom...A new panel that will give Dacre the nod is currently being put together. Each will be asked before they join if they have a problem with Dacre. If any answer yes they won’t be on the panel. That’s how it works. The establishment hate journalists. They simply aren’t clubbable. That’s why I like them and why I am one of them."

• According to the Guardian, Paul Dacre has departed his role as chair of the Daily Mail’s parent company. Although Dacre stood down as editor of the Daily Mail in 2018, he remained as chair and editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers.

Findings from the government's Call for Evidence on Journalist Safety include:

• Just over 4 in 5 journalists experienced threats, abuse or violence as a result of their work. These incidents included abuse, intimidation, threats of violence, violence, death threats, bullying, sexism, racism and homophobia.
• More than a third of women respondents indicated that they did not feel safe operating as a journalist in the UK.
• The majority of respondents did not report all incidents to platforms, police and employers, due in part to poor confidence they would be taken seriously.
• The Call for Evidence asked journalists to describe in more detail the impacts of incidents to identify the most common themes. The most prevalent identified impacts on everyday behaviour included avoiding certain places or crowds, being defensive and wary in public, and avoiding engaging with the public or readers in both physical spaces and on social media.

Andy Burnham on culture secretary Nadine Dorries in the Observer: "Nadine gets herself noticed, but if it becomes a thing that the culture secretary fights culture wars, then I think the job is in serious trouble. When I heard her [conference] comments, I thought, here we go, a BBC-bashing culture secretary.”

Culture secretary Nadine Dorries in the Manchester Evening News marking Journalism Matters Week: "We've introduced a trailblazing Online Safety Bill that will make us one of the first countries in the world to force tech companies to clean up their sites. But, crucially for journalists, that Bill will also prevent social media firms from arbitrarily taking down content from respected news organisations. And, even better, it includes extremely important protection and exemptions for journalists, so that we can protect their free speech while forcing social media platforms to police their sites properly."

News Media Association chairman Henry Faure Walker in InPublishing marking Journalism Matters Week: "Sadly, the American owned tech giants continue to leech revenues away from British journalism, while exploiting our content to sell advertising on their own platforms. We welcome Government moves to tackle this problem, seeking to deliver a level playing field and fair practices, but time is running out, particularly for some local publishers, and we need the Government to go further, faster. And the BBC needs to be prevented from rolling its tanks, funded by the licence fee, onto the lawn of the hard pressed independent local news sector."

BBC director general Tim Davie on the Corporation's new 10-point impartiality plan :"The BBC's editorial values of impartiality, accuracy and trust are the foundation of our relationship with audiences in the UK and around the world. Our audiences deserve and expect programmes and content which earn their trust every day and we must meet the highest standards and hold ourselves accountable in everything we do. The changes we have announced not only ensure we learn the lessons from the past but also protect these essential values for the future."

John Witherow, editor of The Times, speaking at the Web Summit and reported in his own paper [£]: “Today we are told it’s the tech giants who are killing us. Readers want everything for free, we must do click-bait, it’s a race to the bottom. Except that’s not true. Good journalism does not need saving. It’s thriving. This is a golden age for serious journalism. It’s expanding into audio and visual and reaching new audiences.When young people ask me if they should go into journalism nowadays, I say, by all means, now is a great time.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists CPJ’s Global Impunity Index finds: "In more than 80 percent of cases, the killers of journalists are still getting away with murder. Somalia continues to rank as the world’s worst offender, followed by Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, and Afghanistan. Yet while Afghanistan’s spot on the Index is unchanged from 2020, the Taliban’s August takeover raises fears that impunity for journalist murders there may become even more entrenched."

EU Commission statement on International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists: "We will stand by and protect journalists, no matter where they are. We will continue supporting a free and diverse media environment, supporting collaborative and cross-border journalism, and tackling violations of media freedom. There is no democracy without media freedom and pluralism. An attack on media is an attack on democracy.”

From openDemocracy’s new report on the UK Government and Freedom of Information, Access Denied’: "Last year was the worst on record for government secrecy, new research by openDemocracy has revealed. Just 41% of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests sent to government departments and agencies were granted in full in 2020, down from 43% the previous year. This is the lowest figure since records began in 2005."

John Battle in The Times [£] on how to improve court reporting in the digital age: "A step forward would be a reporters’ charter across civil and criminal courts to ensure basic 'rights': a designated place to sit in the court; wi-fi; access to listing details; documents used in evidence; crucial witness statements and the judgment; a point of contact for media inquiries and a right to make representations to the court. Journalists also need a database to access reporting restrictions and relevant documents...The pace of change is not keeping up with the digital age. It is in the interests of the courts, the legal system and the media to make this happen, so let’s get on with it before it’s too late."

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Media Quotes of the Week: From it's the privileged who get the plum journalism jobs to should journalists be objective about Donald Trump?

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet on the union's submission to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility inquiry into Access into Leading Professions: "The media is still over-represented by people from privileged backgrounds who went to private schools and then on to elite universities. The union looks forward to hearing the employers' responses to the All Party Parliamentary Group inquiry and what they are doing to open up the industry to the socially disadvantaged. Because too many people are being simply priced out of the profession. They also lack the networks of the old school tie that still hold sway when people are recruited to the plum jobs."

Roy Greenslade, quoted by the Guardian: "Since I started in the 60s, there has a been a geographic and demographic shift (towards wealthy journalists from the south-east). It’s partly because of the closing down of Glasgow and Manchester offices, which were a talent pool. People once saw a career ladder, from a local weekly, to a regional paper, onto a national. But people are now going straight from master’s [degrees] to Fleet Street.”

Award winning ex-Croydon Advertiser journalist Gareth Davies‏@Gareth_Davies09 on Twitter: "V. sad that this is what Trinity has reduced @croydonad to: running crap listicles in the paper on consecutive pages...A paper with a proud 147-year history reduced to being a thrown together collection of clickbait written for the web...Well, it breaks my heart. I couldn't stick around to watch the paper be destroyed & I would not help them do it...The few reporters who are left are not allowed to meet contacts unless there is a guarantee of a story...Without any prior warning they were put on shifts, including working on Sundays. Every six weeks reporters have to work 12 consecutive days"

Glenn Ebrey ‏@glennebrey on Twitter: "Tweets from @Gareth_Davies09 paint a very sad &, regrettably, accurate picture of what's happening at paper I loved editing for six years."

Neil Benson, Trinity Mirror's regional editorial director, in a statement to Press Gazette: “We are disappointed and baffled by Gareth’s Twitter outburst and do not recognise the claims he makes. The culture at the Croydon Advertiser, particularly since Gareth left and we introduced the new structure, has been one of positivity and excitement about what the future has in store and how the newspaper and website are evolving...The days when reporters could choose, arrogantly, to write about what interests them, rather than what interests the audience, are over. Newspapers are not funded by government or charity donations. As publishers the country and world over are realising, you have to make a profit to survive, and you have to have an audience of significant scale. Without an audience, there is no sustainable future.”

A Trinity Mirror spokeswoman quoted by HoldTheFrontPage: “None of the claims made by Gareth Davies stacks up. Every one of his points is either a misinterpretation of basic standard practice or completely untrue. It is clear he is intent on misrepresenting the Croydon Advertiser and Trinity Mirror, the people who work here and the journalism we produce as part of a personal crusade. We, meanwhile, will continue with our strategy of evolving to ensure a future for our titles.”

Liz Gerard who ran an article by Gareth Davies on her SubScribe blog and got no response from Trinity Mirror when she asked for a comment: "It seems extraordinary for the company to decline to respond to the article on the site where it was published, and then to use another platform to impugn the integrity of a reporter it was happy to claim as its own when he was collecting prizes. Davies is not the man in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square, but he is a lone figure standing up to a big organisation and it isn't good PR for that organisation to be seen to be trying to silence or squash him."

Glenn Ebrey ‏@glennebrey on Twitter: "The people at TM south-east are among the most dedicated, talented you will find in the profession...They don't need pushing to work hard - they'll just do it. Try to treat them like human beings with a bit of decency eh?... And the tone of Trinity’s responses – catty, personal, lacking in class – is much more telling than the emptiness of their words."

Guardian production editor DavidMarsh in a farewell blog after 20 years on the paper: "Like many journalists I started off wanting to be Robert Redford in All the President’s Men. But my favourite job was, less glamorously, editing local papers (long before a proposed new newspaper called the Independent decided, inexplicably, to add me to its launch team 30 years ago, almost to the day). At a local level it’s easier to work with the community to change things for, you hope, the better. Campaigning is the lifeblood of a good local newspaper although, given the way they have been grotesquely mismanaged for many years, with staffing cut to the bone, many find it increasingly difficult to do so."

Peter Preston ‏@PJPrest on Twitter: "Flags in San Serriffe at half mast today. Geoffrey Taylor, master of those legendary Guardian April 1 revels, has died, aged 89."

City media analyst Lorna Tilbian writing for the News Media Association on the circulation rises for newspapers sparked by the EU referendum: "The referendum circulation bounce unequivocally demonstrated that print newspapers remain an important source of information and, at times of instability and uncertainty, they become even more valuable to their readers. Advertisers who are shifting their money away from print need to give this some serious thought."

Roy Greenslade on MediaGuardian: "At times of crisis, people need facts and the identification of terrorists, whether dead or live, is an indispensable part of the required information. Indeed, there is clearly a need to know as much as possible about individual terrorists, about their lives and backgrounds. How else can we understand the reasons for their willingness to commit such acts? We should seek more information, not less."

The Times [£] reports: "The Times has been blocked from reporting explosive details in a £132 million lawsuit brought against two of Britain’s top property developers.The Candy brothers and Mark Holyoake, a former friend who is suing them, each employed libel lawyers who argued that a crucial development in the case should be kept secret. In the action the brothers have already been accused of tax evasion, money laundering and blackmail."

John Witherow, editor of The Times, quoted in The Drum: “Appealing for donations of £49 is not the answer, because it's not enough. You need a million people donating £49 to pay for the journalism at the Guardian which is very good but it's expensive. They have to really rethink their model.”

David Mindich in the Columbia Journalism Review suggests journalists cannot be neutral about Donald Trump: "We’ve reached a turning point, and the two criteria for journalists to abandon their objectivity have come to pass: Trump is widely criticized, even by his own party, giving journalists a lot of company in their criticism of him. When Trump suggested that Judge Curiel was incapable of trying a case because of his parents’ birthplace, even House Speaker Paul Ryan, a fellow Republican, called the comments 'racist.'And Trump’s views appear increasingly deviant. No respected journalist would seek a balancing quote from someone who held such a view about a judge or who suggested, as Trump did after the Orlando shootings, that a sitting president was in cahoots with a mass murderer."

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Media Quotes of the Week: From McDonnell says Labour would break up ownership of UK media to the Guardian attacks the Sun over Muslims' poll

Pic: BBC

Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell quoted in the Morning Star: “This last seven weeks that we’ve been in administration, the media assault on us has been, I think, a disgrace. I’ve never been comfortable with the way media ownership is in this country, but it does mean, to be frank, we have to commit ourselves now to media reform … break up the ownership of our media.”

Tim Yeo filmed by undercover insight reporters

Martin Ivens, the editor of The Sunday Times, quoted in The Times [£], after the libel action brought by ex-MP Tim Yeo over lobbying allegations was thrown out: “This is a victory for investigative journalism. It vindicates the role of the press in exposing the clandestine advocacy by MPs for undisclosed interests. The Sunday Times’s Insight team has a long history of reporting on the conduct of politicians and is proud to have forced reform of standards in public life.”

Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors: "Every time journalists write or say: ‘following a Freedom of Information request’ they should send a tenner to the Campaign for Freedom of Information which desperately needs our support to maintain its vital work."

Jon Snow in the Observer defending BBC reporter Graham Satchell for showing emotion while covering Paris terrorist attacks: "Journalism makes no sense to the citizen without some emotional engagement. That doesn’t mean we have to sensationalise, or struggle to be emotional in our reporting. But we do have to tell it like it is. If we deny the impact an event has upon us, we deny not only ourselves, but those who depend on us for at least some of their information."

The old Manchester Guardian and Evening News building

Guardian editor Katharine Viner on plans for the paper to return to its Manchester roots and expand reporting in the north of England: “I’m delighted to be building on the Guardian’s fine heritage in Manchester by putting more reporters on the ground to get scoops, break news and provide context and analysis about the north of England.” 

John Simpson, quoted by the Huffington Post: "I suppose it's the dawn of the new century, but I'm really very kind of depressed about the way that newspapers and television has developed. The jobs are fewer, the pay is much much less. I'm afraid we're back to where we used to be a century or more ago, in the late Victorian or early Edwardian period, when journalists were pretty much self-financed. So all those courses in media studies which were producing really high qualified and able people have suddenly kind of hatched up in the sands because the money to employ them is not there any more."

John Witherow, editor of The Times, interviewed in Press Gazette: “We have not cut back on journalists, if anything we have invested in them. And that’s our firm commitment... people will only pay for subscriptions if you have quality. You shoot yourself in the foot by cutting back on journalism, because they won’t subscribe and then our whole model falls apart.”

Douglas Jehl, the Washington Post’s foreign editor, after the paper's correspondent Jason Rezaian was jailed for an unspecified term in Iran: “Every day that Jason is in prison is an injustice. He has done nothing wrong. Even after keeping Jason in prison 488 days so far, Iran has produced no evidence of wrongdoing. His trial and sentence are a sham, and he should be released immediately.”

liz gerard ‏@gameoldgirl on Twitter: "There comes a point when @dailyexpressuk crosses the line from ludicrous to irresponsible."

The Guardian bashes the Sun in a leader: "Terrorists only win if they force us to abandon our way of life and instead live in terror. What better way to do their work for them than to make up a story that leaves Britons believing that 20% of a particular community wants to blow them up."

Sun managing editor Stig Abell in a letter to the Guardian: "It is perhaps not surprising that the Guardian chose to get angry at the Sun’s poll in your editorial. It is ironic, though, that the Guardian makes play of complaints to the newspaper industry regulator Ipso [Independent Press Standards Organisation], an organisation it has itself declined to join."

IPSO in a statement on the Sun's front page: "IPSO’s policy when dealing with a large number of complaints about a particular issue that requires investigation is to select a lead complaint. In this case, IPSO has selected MEND (Muslim Engagement & Development) as the lead complaint. We have written to The Sun to inform them that we have commenced an investigation into this matter. As of this morning, Thursday 25th November, IPSO has received around 2,600 complaints relating to the article. The majority of these refer to Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice."

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Quotes of the Week: Snowden snooper scoop to why punch-ups at dog shows are national news

Guardian Edward Snowden scoop makes four splashes

 NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in the Guardian: "I know the media likes to personalise political debates, and I know the government will demonise me."

Matthew Ingram on PaidContent: "The fact that both Greenwald and the Guardian are to some extent 'outsiders' may have helped them land what could be one of the biggest national-security stories since Watergate. And the stories — a series that Greenwald says has only just begun — will undoubtedly burnish the Guardian‘s reputation in the U.S., not to mention its web traffic."

Rod Logan in a letter to the Guardian:  "It is good to know that our email letters to the Guardian that do not make it into your paper are at least being read by somebody, somewhere, sometime."

Roy Greenslade on his MediaGuardian blog: "The breaking of the Snowden revelations story must surely put The Guardian in line for a Pulitzer, making it the first British newspaper to win the award."

Ben Brogan in the Telegraph on Edward Snowden: "A close reading of his manifesto, with his talk of a “federation of secret law” ruling the world, CIA hit-squads, surveillance nets on the verge of activation and his right to act against a duly constituted, democratically elected government, suggests he has spent too much time watching Hollywood DVDs on his laptop and studying conspiracy theory forums on the web. Whether he is naive, deluded or malicious, he has generated a drama that is more about the fantastical steps he took to put himself beyond America’s grasp than the content of the classified information he released."

Boris Johnson in the Telegraph on the NSA allegations: "I think if I were Shami Chakrabarti, or my old chum David Davis, I might get thoroughly aerated at this point; and I have some sympathy with their general position. But then I am afraid I also have sympathy with our security services, and their very powerful need to use the internet to catch the bad guys – the terrorists, the jihadis, the child porn creeps. There is a trade-off between freedom and security, as Barack Obama rightly says; between the citizen’s right to total internet privacy, and the duty of the state to protect us all from harm."

The Sun apologises to Aliens: "IN an article on Saturday headlined ‘Flying saucers over British Scientology HQ’, we stated “two flat silver discs” were seen “above the Church of Scientology HQ”. Following a letter from lawyers for the Church, we apologise to any alien lifeforms for linking them to Scientologists." 

Grey Cardigan on The Spin Alley: "I was quite interested in the Newspaper Society’s seven-point plan to save the regional publishing industry – and then I actually read it. Dropping opposition to mergers despite monopoly issues, curbing BBC competition, enforced use of local press advertising by government and public bodies, keeping statuary public notices in newspapers, shutting down council newspapers which compete with the local press, tighter copyright enforcement on the content of newspaper websites and maintaining zero-rating on newspaper cover prices. Is this really the best the NS can do? Seven points, every single one of them either defensive or protectionist (although I do agree with a couple of them). No leadership, no innovation, no brilliant ideas… Pathetic, just pathetic."

Peter Preston in the Observer: "The delay in agreeing some formula for press regulation is dangerous on both sides. The press – having written off the PCC as not tough enough – can't bodge along indefinitely with no successor in place. Something, in such a vacuum, is bound to go wrong. It always does. Witness the rather unexpected award of damages to a Tory deputy fundraising chairman complaining about a Sunday Times sting. If newspapers can't provide their own authority together, they may be left to swing separately. And think of what, post-2015, an incoming government with a clear mandate might do then."

Acting Times editor John Witherow ruling out an editorial merger with the Sunday Times [£]: “Fundamental changes are limited by the undertakings and in fact we see no great benefits at this stage from merging much of editorial, though we will keep this under review. It is important as much for commercial reasons as editorial that we keep the characters of the papers separate and this requires different staff in several areas.”

Peter Wright on the deal between Hacked Off and the political parties at the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, as reported by Press Gazette: "I think it has placed the Government in a position where they are trapped with a royal charter proposal and a set of recognition criteria that they know the industry are not going to sign up to. I can quite see that it may be difficult to get things moving again but at some point they do need to be got moving."

Guido Fawkes ‏@GuidoFawkes on Twitter: "Great strategic thinker and master tactician Harriet Harman has devised a plan to force Murdoch to support the Tories. 15% market share cap." 

The Media Blog ‏@TheMediaTweets  on Twitter re-Murdoch divorce: "Hopefully everyone will respect Rupert Murdoch's right to privacy. Pretty sure he'd do the same."

Charles Moore in the Telegraph accusing the national press of being dominated by bad news compared to the local media: "Local papers and broadcasters are unashamedly on the side of the areas they serve. Of course they relish scandals, but they also delight in successes. At flower and dog shows, if local papers are to be believed, rain always 'fails to dampen the spirits'. National papers only really get interested when every exhibit is swept away in a tidal wave or, as happened recently at a dog show in Kent, people start punching one another."

Peter Hirsch posts on Charles Moore's article (above): "Thank you, Charles. Now perhaps you could just post the link to that dog show in Kent?"

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Quotes of the Week: From online-only can mean death to Guardian headline spoilt my breakfast

Peter Preston in The Observer: "Newsweek used to sell 3.3m copies per edition. Even when it was sold for a dollar, then folded in with Tina Brown's Daily Beast in a digital merger last December, there were more than a million customers out there wanting their old print fix. So the story that Newsweek online was blazing a path into the future rather than lurching towards oblivion seemed to have some validity. But today? What's left is up for sale again: think 50 cents. The owners want to 'concentrate' on the Beast instead. Sometimes going online-only is the sensible thing to do; but more often than not, it can seem like euthanasia with a buoyant press release."

Janice Turner in The Times: "I’m not sure where it started to go wrong with Rhys Ifans. A truly awful interview can catch you like a cloudburst in August. How quickly his answers escalated through disdain to disgust then mad-eyed vibrating hostility until he announced 'I am bored with you' and stalked out, leaving his publicist hand-wringing and ashen."

MP Patrick Mercer asked by an undercover Panorama reporter to lobby on behalf of Fiji: "Guido Fawkes will be all over this like a dose of clap."

The Sun in a leader: "WHAT a bonanza the Leveson inquiry was for lucky lawyers David Sherborne and his doe-eyed lover Carine Patry Hoskins. Not only did they find each other — but they also pocketed £385,000 of taxpayers’ money." 

Acting editor John Witherow in a letter to readers of The Times [£]: "The Times is different from Britain’s other newspapers. Most are dominated by voices from the Left or Right. In contrast, readers of The Times can find a variety of opinions from across the political spectrum. That adds up to a more intellectually stimulating experience."

Daily Mail in a leader: "The politicians may have spent yesterday insisting they are committed to cleaning up the Westminster cesspit. But, disturbingly, their determination to try to silence the newspapers who continue to expose their wrong-doing suggests otherwise." 

Michael Wolff on Rupert Murdoch, on USA Today: "Murdoch, gruff, cold, unable to talk in any personal sense, has seemed like the most steely and hard-hearted of businessmen — that's the Murdoch myth. In fact, he has always been a besieged king, balancing a precarious empire, fighting each battle as it came, seeing his wins and losses as a wholly personal reflection of his strength and character. The hard man is all emotion."

Attorney General Dominic Grieve on ITV News: "Clearly, if the press [has] got to know who somebody is who has been arrested and are publicising that, then clearly it might be very sensible for the police to confirm that fact."

Felix Dennis in The Observer: "I can't even count the number of business failures I've had. Mags that never worked. Mags that worked at the start then failed. Mags that we poured money into and they tanked. No one else remembers them, but I remember them all. They are engraved on my soul."

Suzanne Moore in the Guardian: "Governments play up the idea that a digital future creates jobs rather than eats them up. Culturally, there is now a fantasy world of start-ups and blogs and YouTube TV where a very few people manage to make money but most work simply for 'experience'."

Roy Greenslade's verdict on his MediaGuardian blog on Trinity Mirror's new Sunday Brands division for all its national and regional Sunday newspapers: "Sunday Brands is, quite simply, a giant mistake."

Tim Crook ‏@libertarianspir on Twitter: " 'Oral sex caused my cancer' What an awful headline for the Guardian. Put me off my muesli." 


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