Media Quotes of the Week: From journalism job losses soar across the media to 'unencumbered capitalism' blamed for destroying newspapers

Press Gazette reports: "The UK’s largest newspaper group Reach announced plans to cut 550 staff (or around 12% of its workforce). The cutbacks are part of changes intended to deliver savings of £35m a year at a one-off cost of £20m. As of 2019 Reach employed 2,598 journalists and editorial staff across 150 national and regional press brands. Its national news brands include the Mirror and Express and regionally it publishes titles including the Manchester Evening News and Birmingham Mail."

• Press Gazette also reports: "Liverpool Echo editor and North West editor-in-chief Ali Machray and Bristol Post editor and editor-in-chief for Reach West Mike Norton are both stepping down...At the regionals, four marketplace publishers will be responsible for the print titles and their market positioning. Working alongside them will be audience and content directors who have been appointed across different regions to run local newsrooms and work as part of the digital editorial leadership team. Local editors will report to them."

Reach chief executive Jim Mullen in a statement, quoted by HoldTheFrontPage: “Structural change in the media sector has accelerated during the pandemic and this has resulted in increased adoption of our digital products. However, due to reduced advertising demand, we have not seen commensurate increases in digital revenue. To meet these challenges and to accelerate our customer value strategy, we have completed plans to transform the business and are ready to begin the process of implementation. Regrettably, these plans involve a reduction in our workforce...Award-winning journalism and content will always be at the core of our purpose.”

Bureau of Investigative Journalism editor Rachel Oldroyd on Twitter: "Reach announces 500 job cuts, but says award-winning investigative journalism will remain at its core. The problem is that good local accountability journalism and constant scrutiny of local power doesn't win awards but is vital to democracy and local communities."

Chris Morley, Newsquest NUJ national coordinator, in a statement on  'substantial' redundancies at Newsquest: "We recognise that the pandemic crisis has badly impacted the economy and businesses are struggling to overcome sharp falls in their revenue streams. The government stepped in to provide massive support to commercial companies and to provide a financial bridge to head off mass redundancies. It is really disappointing that the so-called Job Retention Scheme (furlough) now appears to be fast turning into a waiting room for redundancy. So many of those roles being selected for redundancy in Newsquest are those that have been recently furloughed, particularly sport and photography."

The Stage announcing it has started consulting staff about redundancy due to the impact of Coronavirus on theatreland: “A high proportion of The Stage’s revenue is generated from recruitment advertising, which vanished overnight with the shutdown of theatres. The Stage is an independently owned family business and our small team achieves a huge amount. This is not the course of action anyone wanted or could have predicted. We have now spoken to the team members affected and are beginning to consult with them.”

Helen Thomas, director of BBC England, in a statement on plans by the BBC to cut 450 jobs in its  English regional TV news and current affairs, local radio and online news: “I’m proud people have turned to us for trusted news and information in huge numbers during COVID-19, proving the importance of our local and regional services. But those services were created more than 50 years ago, have changed very little and need significant reinvention. That has meant taking some difficult decisions."

Paul Siegert, NUJ national broadcasting organiser, in a statement on the BBC cuts: “There will be relief that the union’s campaign to save the Politics shows has paid off and that the journalism created by Inside Out has not been scrapped. But the hit to local radio – for staff and listeners – will be a major blow. Commercial radio has all but given up on providing any local news and radio has been a great mainstay for many communities during the crisis."

Ex-Northern Echo editor Peter Barron on the BBC cuts on Twitter: "Been through it with local newspapers & now radio. Seen so many brilliant, passionate grass roots journalists displaced in recent years. Local news, local campaigns, local investigations, local accountability are the bedrock of our democracy. So sad, so wrong to see it undermined."

Foreign secretary Dominic Raab, quoted by The Times [£] after announcing sanctions against 20 Saudi Arabians involved in the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi: “Those with blood on their hands, the thugs of despots, or the henchmen of dictators, won’t be free to waltz into this country to buy up property on the Kings Road, or do their Christmas shopping in Knightsbridge, or frankly to siphon dirty money through British banks or financial institutions.”

Ian Murray, executive director of the Society of Editors, in a statement on plans for televised Lobby briefings: “If the aim of the televised briefings is to enable greater transparency then it will be important that they are of sufficient length and inclusive in nature to ensure a broad cross section of the media is able to question the government. It is vital that the government gives assurances that journalists or media providers out of favour with the administration will not be barred from such briefings.”

Matt Chorley in The Times [£]: "No 10 is advertising for someone to front daily press conferences, having been impressed at the viewing figures for the coronavirus briefings, apparently misunderstanding that millions of people were a bit more interested in whether they were going to die than they will be in finding out which factory Alok Sharma is visiting...Key skills include an ability to feign interest all the way to the end of Robert Peston’s question, and then respond with one of four phrases chosen at random: 'We are doubling down on levelling up'; 'This is a typical Westminster bubble story'; 'I haven’t spoken to the PM about that'; or 'I think the public watching have had enough of these gotcha questions'."

David Simon interviewed in the Sunday Times [£]: “Wall Street figured out that if you put out shittier newspapers with a small news coverage and less talent, you could make more money than if you put out a quality newspaper with better news coverage and real talent. And they were right. For a short-term window, they were right, and they guided my industry into this shithole on that logic. It was unencumbered capitalism that disengaged journalism from its purpose. When The Baltimore Sun was at its height, when I was there, we were publishing an evening and a morning edition, and we had 500 reporters in the building. Then there were 90 people covering the same terrain, so, obviously, not covering it.”

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Media Quotes of the Week: From will the Boris Johnson press honeymoon last? to Dacre's damning view on the state of the British media

Owen Jones @OwenJones84 on Twitter: "I genuinely think that the official newspaper of a dictatorship would have been too embarrassed to print this."

Ex Sun editor David Yelland @davidyelland on Twitter: "A piece of advice from an old hand. There is an inevitable sunlit upland Boris bounce in media. Give it two/three weeks. It will pass quickly."

Nick Cohen @NickCohen4 on Twitter: "The only bright note about having Vote Leave control the country is that it might bring an end to the dismally low standard of journalism of the last three years. Now they can be held to account for their promises."

Former colleague of Boris Johnson's new head of communications Lee Cain, an ex-reporter who used to dress up as the Mirror's Chicken, as reported by the Mirror: "Lee was actually a great Mirror Chicken. He attacked the role with real zeal and a great passion. The newsdesk were so impressed with his work he was used on a number of occasions. I vividly remember him coming in to the newsroom and prancing around still in his full outfit like a rooster. It’s hard to believe that a man with his past of taunting the cowardly Tories is now such a powerful figure inside No 10.”

Matt Chorley @MattChorley on Twitter on talkRADIO's Ross Kempsell moving to No 10 as a policy adviser: "Congrats to Ross, but every time a journalist crosses over it is a setback for those of us who think our role is to interrogate, expose and ridicule the powerful, not audition for a job with them."

ITV Wales political editor Adrian Masters @adrianmasters84 on Twitter: "For the record then: on the Prime Minister’s first visit to Wales the national news outlets of Wales @ITVWales @BBCWalesNews and @WalesOnline weren’t allowed interviews. We were offered chance to ask questions but not to film them. Also for the record, I refused this offer. I hate to have turned down the chance to challenge Boris Johnson but I wouldn’t have been able to broadcast any of it. I’d have had to read quotes to the audience...I do think it’s a strange way to begin for a new Prime Minister who says he wants to strengthen the union to treat the main national news outlets this way."

Emily Bell in the Guardian: In the end, perhaps the biggest lesson the British media can learn from the US experience of Trump is that their work matters to people beyond their readership or audience, and to that end it needs to become more rigorous and more serious. On both sides of the Atlantic there is a circular firing squad of the commentariat who wonder, on a daily basis, how did this happen? The boring truth is that we need to pay attention to the substance and not the glockenspiel. When the circus has left town, we will need a reliable record to remind us of what happened, and how, and why."

Kyle Pope, the editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journalism Review, quoted in the Guardian: “I’d encourage UK reporters to be brutally honest with themselves and their audience, about who Boris is and what his motivations are, then move on. Don’t let him be their editor, don’t let him dictate the news cycle.”

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, in a statement after the High Court ruled bulk surveillance powers do not breach freedom of expression rights: "The legal judgment is a blow to journalists and press freedom. The union has consistently challenged the UK’s investigatory powers and the authorities continue to use extensive secret surveillance techniques. The NUJ is concerned that the ability to access journalistic communications, in particular bulk interceptions and interference, without prior independent authority, places whistleblowers and sources at risk, and makes it more difficult to hold those in power to account. This risks jeopardising the role of the media as the public’s watchdog."

Paul Dacre in The Spectator: "The British media generally is in a dreadful state: Sky, a great British success story, now owned by the Americans; ITV’s shares on the floor amid rumours of a foreign merger; the ubiquitous Johnston Press bankrupt; the cadavers of the once mighty Mirror and Express being asset-stripped; Murdoch’s News UK setting aside around half a billion pounds for damages to phone-hacking victims; the Guardian, with its shrill feminism and hard-left juvenilia, dependent on charity; the Standard (what sublime hypocrisy is its editor George Osborne’s support for Boris) being investigated for its financial links to a Saudi regime that murders journalists; and the BBC, staffed by kids, run by an OAP, obsessed by filling every vacant post with women and dwarfed by the streaming giants."

MPs told: "Attacking the messenger won't work'

Matt Chorley, London editor of the Plymouth-based Western Morning News has hit out on his blog against MPs trying to turn the tables on journalists by asking them to disclose their expenses and salaries.
He writes: "In recent days I have been asked, by MPs, to publish my modest expenses. Colleagues in the regional press have been challenged by MPs to say how much they earn.
This disgusting, ignorant attempt to divert attention away from a culture of sleaze totally ignores the fact that newspaper journalists are not paid out of the public purse."
He adds: "I have an interest to declare. I live an MP’s lifestyle without the perks. My wife lives in Somerset but my job requires me to be in London, where I rent a flat (no moat) using my salary. My family is in the Westcountry, my job in the capital.
I travel standard class from Paddington to Taunton and back most weeks, paid out of my own pocket.
It is my choice, of course, to do this. But it is the choice of every ambitious political thruster to stand for election, supposedly for that quaint old idea of “public service”.
I earn nothing like the salary of MPs, and sadly the WMN does not stretch to paying out for bath plugs, housekeepers or wisteria trimming.
I am sick of hearing them bleat on about the need for Sky TV, sofa beds and claiming the weekly shop.
The basic salary for an MP is £ 64,766. The average wage in the Westcountry is around a third of that - with no perks.
The system needs to change, of course it does, but the mentality of MPs of all parties is what needs the biggest shake-up.
The reputation of politics is going to be harder to fix than John Prescott’s loo seat.
Attacking the messenger is not the answer. MPs must get their own (second) house in order before democracy is undermined for good."
Story via HoldtheFrontPage