Showing posts with label Michael Crick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Crick. Show all posts

Thursday, 4 July 2019

Media Quotes of the Week: From outrage as Trump jokes with Putin about getting rid of journalists to please don't scan our magazines - buy them!




Bloomberg White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs  @JenniferJJacobs on Twitter at the Osaka Summit: "Trump also bonded with Putin over a scorn for journalists. 'Get rid of them. Fake news is a great term, isn't it? You don’t have this problem in Russia, but we do.' 'We also have,' Putin answered, in English. 'It’s the same.' They shared a chuckle."

Brian Klaas @brianklaas on Twitter: "This is disgusting. Putin’s regime has murdered many, many journalists. And the President of the United States is joking about abusing the press with Russia’s despot, who likely ordered some of those killings."

Andrew Neil @afneil on Twitter: "Trump sitting with Putin calls journalists he doesn’t agree with ‘fake news’. You don’t have that problem, he tells Putin. He’s right. Journalists who cross Putin are killed or disappeared or jailed. Disgraceful statement by a US President."

Margaret Sullivan in the Washington Post: "Trump is joking with a foreign adversary about two of the most basic elements of American democracy: voting integrity and the role of free press. And he has the gall to accuse the press of treason? Those who call themselves Americans should be disgusted by what Trump did in Osaka."



The Labour Party in a statement, reported by ITV News: "These Times stories are a series of false, fabricated and absurd allegations hiding behind anonymous sources with a transparently political agenda. For any senior civil servant to falsely claim the leader of the opposition is ill, frail or forgetful, is a disgrace and a clear political intervention. In a democracy, the people decide who is prime minister."


Michael Crick in the Sunday Times [£] on similarities between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn: "Where most politicians are hugely dependent on the mainstream media and would be lost without it, Corbyn managed to become Labour leader, and stay there, without it. Johnson, until recently, had been doing his best to avoid press conferences and broadcast interviews. Yet both men have been professional journalists. Like Winston Churchill before him, Johnson is one of the highest-paid columnists of his age. Corbyn’s career as a journalist was rather more modest. He began adult life on the Newport and Market Drayton Advertiser in Shropshire, covering weddings and funerals — 20 years or so before Johnson became a trainee reporter on the Wolverhampton Express & Star."




Ex-Telegraph owner Lord Conrad Black on Max Hastings and Boris Johnson in the Spectator"Boris’s peccadilloes were more absurd, complicated and over-publicised than the shambles of the personal lives of other journalists. But his editorial opinions were sensible and consistent. His schtick grew tiresome, like an over-familiar vaudeville act, but he was at all times a person of goodwill and his foibles were deployed to the benefit of the enterprise. He had his lapses, but he was capable, successful and reliable when it counted, and he is, as he appears, a pleasant man. Max is an ill-tempered snob with a short attention span. He has his talents, but it pains me to report that when seriously tested, he was a coward and a flake. I think Boris will be fine."


Marina Hyde in the Guardian"Why are we getting journalists to run anything? What’s the rationale – that now they’ve torched their own industry, they should be allowed a go on the country? If the past couple of decades have shown us anything, it’s that journalists shouldn’t really have been in charge of even the journalism business. It is far from a coincidence that two of the leading architects of Brexit – Michael Gove and Johnson – were both journalists. Is it in any way surprising to find that the UK is very drunk and has already missed two deadlines?"



The Times [£] in a leader on the Government white paper on internet harm: "As things stand, all media outlets with space for user comments could be considered platforms under the proposals. That could include sites like that of The Times, which may find itself under pressure to quieten or kill the often lively debates that take place under articles online. The government says that it will not regulate where press regulation is already in place. But it must be clearer about how it will fulfil such a promise given the wording of the white paper."


Q magazine editor Ted Kessler @TedKessler1 on Twitter: "I politely implore the @florencemachine fanclubs to take down the @QMagazine cover story. Posting it online the day it’s in the shops will put us out business, halting this kind of twelve page feature on your favourite artist. Everyone deserves paying for their work."

Empire magazine editor-in-chief Terri White @Terri_White on Twitter: "We have people scanning in massive chunks of @empiremagazine every month to share in fan communities. The *real* service of fans is in allowing magazines like @empiremagazine and @QMagazine to continue to exist."More
Private Eye @PrivateEyeNews on Twitter: "This is just as true of Private Eye. Encouraging your followers to buy a copy and help fund the sort of journalism we do (and pay cartoonists!) is great; photographing whole chunks and giving them away for free when we've only just gone on sale really isn't."

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Thursday, 11 May 2017

Media Quotes of the Week: Sold the Front Page! Backlash hits local press over political party ads to Mail bashes Financial Times over Brexit sums



Fraser Nelson on Spectator blogs: "It is tragic that local newspapers have been reduced to selling front pages to politicians, but it’s a grim reflection of the murderous market conditions. This also underlines the risk posed to press freedom. Now and again, politicians pretend take a great interest in the standards of the press (Leveson, etc) and propose a system (like Max Mosley’s ‘Impress’) that creates a regulatory hierarchy, with politicians at the top. They sense, rightly, that the press has never been weaker. Ministers also profess to be very worried about fake news. But this election shows show how their main interest is, and always will be, the manipulation of the news to their own ends. It is the job of a free press to counteract this, but a free press needs money. When the money comes from politicians, the results are hideous."

Roy Greenslade in the Guardian: "The front pages of scores of titles carried large pictures of the prime minister under the headline 'Theresa May for Britain' plus her familiar slogan about the need to strengthen her hand in the Brexit negotiations. Sure, it carried the line about it being an “advertiser’s announcement” and the Electoral Commission argued that did not break electoral law. If so, the law needs amending because it allows money to play a disproportionate role in election campaigning."

Dominic Ponsford in Press Gazette: "Editors are responsible for the advertising which appears in their newspapers and have to ensure that it is not misleading or in breach of the law. They aren’t making a political statement by accepting advertising and it won’t influence the admirably even-handed political coverage most local newspapers provide. While editors would undoubtedly prefer to have news, rather than ads, on the front page. In the current climate they cannot afford to turn down the business."


Readers' petition:"As regular readers of the Westmorland Gazette we are dismayed to see OUR community paper being misused for party political purposes. Whilst we would welcome balanced representation of all LOCAL candidates within the paper, we feel strongly that a front page advert for a single national party is not acceptable (especially when published on a polling day (4/5/17)!). We request that you publish a full front page apology in your next issue. Please note that many of us will be boycotting the paper until this occurs."


Séamus Dooley, acting NUJ general secretary, in a statement: “Journalists on local newspapers are gravely concerned at the blurring of lines between editorial content and advertising. There has been a strong backlash from readers as a result of wraparound advertising purchased by political parties and presented in a news format. The advertising is clearly designed to convey the impression of a news story and incorporates the paper masthead. There is a long, proud tradition of clearly differentiating between news and adverting, even in newspapers which adopt a partisan editorial line, and that principle should not be abandoned."


BuzzFeed reports: "Jeremy Corbyn's team told BuzzFeed News it was 'not invited' to campaign events on Tuesday and that access to the Labour leader would be limited for the rest of the campaign, following the publication of an interview on Monday night in which Corbyn said he intended to remain in the job even if he lost the general election....Political editor Jim Waterson, who carried out the interview, then contacted Corbyn's spokesperson to find out why we had not been invited to the campaign stops. A senior Corbyn aide told him that BuzzFeed News would now find its access limited because the interview had disrupted media coverage of Labour's launch event, that we had not informed Corbyn's team in advance of the headline we intended to run, and that we had press-released the interview to other media organisations who then chose to pick it up."


Michael Crick‏@MichaelLCrick on Twitter: "I was told by May aide I wasn't on list to ask May a question, & there was no point in putting my hand up to ask one....What shocks me is reporters collaborate with May press team by agreeing to reveal their questions to them in advance."


Jodie Ginsberg, CEO at Index on Censorship, which has published a review of press freedom in the US: “Animosity toward the press comes in many forms. Journalists are targeted in several ways: from social media trolling to harassment by law enforcement to over-the-top public criticism by those in the highest office. The negative atmosphere for journalists is damaging for the public and their right to information.”


The Times [£] in a leader: "Rumours are an occupational hazard of the news business, but in the digital age, rumours based on fantasy and fabrication spread without limit. Regardless of the merits of the candidates in western elections, it is a threat to democracy when Mr Putin’s online fabulists run campaigns of defamation. The response of western governments should be uncompromising. In Britain, Russia Today has been found in breach of the regulator’s broadcasting code on multiple occasions. France is experiencing similar shameless subversion. It’s past time to crack down on the propaganda of a hostile foreign power."


Daily Mail in a leader:"As for how much more he [the European Commission’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier] hopes to extort, a few weeks ago he suggested we ‘owe’ some £50 billion. But yesterday, the EU’s slavish devotees at the Japanese-owned Financial Times — whose editor has been nominated for France’s Legion d’Honneur in recognition of his services to the European project — went further still. Plucking figures from the air, its Brussels correspondent opined that ‘new demands driven by France and Germany’ would increase our ‘upfront’ Brexit bill to some £85 billion. As any child should be able to see, such figures carry no authority whatever."

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Thursday, 23 March 2017

Media Quotes of the Week: Hey, that's our job! journalists react angrily to Osborne's Evening Standard editorship to MPs bash BBC over Brexit




Roy Greenslade‏ @GreensladeR On Twitter: "My flabber is gasted! George Osborne editor of @EveningStandard"

Anne Pickles‏ @AnnePickles on Twitter: "Evening Standard takes on a traditionalist editor - one who's there only until lunchtime. By 'eck, them were the days."

Tom Watson@tom_watson on Twitter: "The long hours and early starts that editing a paper like the Evening Standard requires are incompatible with the demands placed on MPs."

Patrick Wintour@patrickwintour on Twitter: "My recollection is my father never saw editing the London Evening Standard as a part-time job."

Andrew Neil @afneil on Twitter: "When made Editor of The Sunday Times I was criticised because I hadn't been an editor. Mr Osborne hasn't even been a journalist."

Tim Crook on the Charted Institute Of Journalists blog: "The role of editor in British journalism should remain the pinnacle of professional journalistic achievement. It needs to be respected as the goal, aspiration and dream of a career in journalism. It deploys political, social, and cultural power and the position usually commands significant rewards in terms of salary and reputation. The George Osborne and Evening Standard affair risks trivialising, mocking and compromising the vital role that professional journalistic media should have in our society. While it might be a boon to those sections in the Conservative Party who have an agenda in relation to Prime Minister Theresa May’s government, it is unlikely to bring many benefits to British journalism."

Guido Fawkes on his blog: "The editor one of the country’s highest circulating newspapers will now have a parliamentary vote on any further issues relating to press regulation. Osborne voted for the full implementation of the Leveson Inquiry. The whole point of Leveson was to stop politicians and newspaper editors becoming too close…"

Peter Preston in the Observer: "Osborne has nil relevant journalism experience. You might as well make Richard Littlejohn chancellor of the exchequer. No: George will pen a few words, front a few Lebedev cocktail parties and pocket a few hundred thousand pounds, burying the remains of a once glowing political career. The perfect PR symbol of our times: a fake newspaper editor."

Piers Morgan's advice for Osborne on MailOnline: "Remember, everyone on the Standard staff now probably hates you. They'll pretend not to, and do a lot of fake smiling as they constantly reassure you that having zero journalistic experience is absolutely no problem for the editor of their great newspaper. But behind your back, they'll be a seething hotbed of indignant fury and some of them will be absolutely desperate for you to fall flat on your face very quickly."



Marina Hyde in the Guardian: "One of the more questionable pleasures of the age has been to watch people who used to be journalists cocking up the country, and people who used to cock up the country becoming journalists."




A spokesperson for the Guardian: “Allegations that the Metropolitan police has accessed the email accounts of Guardian journalists are extremely concerning and we expect a full and thorough investigation into these claims.”


John Rentoul in the Independent on Michael Crick: "One of the crowning glories of the uncodified British constitution is called 'Michael Crick'. The holder of this post is essential to the functioning of democracy. His relentless reporting of Conservative election expenses bore fruit when the Electoral Commission fined the Tory party £70,000 and asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate whether a crime had been committed. Crick, who has been one of my heroes since he exposed the Militant tendency’s covert entryism in the Labour Party in 1984, has provided a textbook example of how free media is needed to make democracy work."


The Times [£] in a leader: "Companies such as Twitter, Facebook and Google routinely publish false news stories and hate speech. Their approach to removing this content has been lackadaisical at best. They try to abdicate responsibility by calling themselves “platforms”, when in fact they are publishers. No one is fooled."


MPs in a letter to the BBC accusing it of anti-Brexit bias, as reported by the Telegraph: “BBC bias can have a substantial effect on national debate. We fear that, by misrepresenting our country either as xenophobic or regretful of the Leave vote, the BBC will undermine our efforts to carve out a new, global role for this country."

Nick Robinson‏@bbcnickrobinson on Twitter: "Do not adjust your set. Normal service from the BBC means you will hear people you disagree with say things you don't like. (That's our job)."

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Thursday, 8 October 2015

Media Quotes of the Week: From Peston poached, praised and criticised to PM on what Twitter isn't



Robert Peston on his BBC blog: "So you may have noticed that I am off to another place. I don't think this is my last blog post here, but I did want to say something a bit more personal than normal on this occasion - which is that working for BBC News has been the high point of my working life. Its unrivalled commitment to objectivity, seriousness and relevance is a beacon. And its journalists, editors, producers and cameramen are world class."

Piers Morgan@piersmorgan on Twitter: "The more BBC stars queue up to mock & brief against @Peston, more obvious it is a) how good he is and b) what a coup ITV have pulled off..."

Andew Marr, on Steve Wright in the Afternoon on BBC Radio 2: It is rumoured that Robert Peston, a man crippled by a sense of his own lack of self-worth and insecurity, is going to be up against me doing an ITV 9am politics show. I think all competition is good, I think we all do better if we're competed against, head to head. Fine. Bring it on."


Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail: "Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but I believe that we journalists should be personally respectful when we ask questions of politicians. They are elected; we are not.I don’t mean that the questions should be deferential or soft, but they should be asked in a civil manner.  For that reason, I don’t believe I was the only BBC viewer shocked to witness Robert Peston, the BBC economics editor, asking questions of the Chancellor on his recent trip to China in a casual shirt, unbuttoned, reclining in his chair."


Michael Crick ‏@MichaelLCrick on Twitter: "Anarchists shout 'Tory scum' at us as we enter Conservative conference, and I was spat at."


suzanne moore ‏@suzanne_moore on Twitter: "I do get that a lot of people hate journalists. An elite from very narrow pool. That pool has narrowed since I started. Its a problem."


Stig Abell ‏@StigAbell on Twitter: "The Guardian: writing incomprehensible headlines for awful hipsters since 1834."


Mr Justice Saunders refusing to lift an order banning the media naming the 15-year-old Blackburn boy who plotted an Anzac Day terror attack in Australia, as reported by PA/Press Gazette: "I am satisfied that in this case there will only be a limited deterrent effect in naming and shaming, and that there is a risk that in some parts of our society he will be glorified for what he has done. That glorification is more likely to be effective if (the defendant) is identified and more likely to encourage others to do what he has done."


Committee to Protect Journalists' executive director Joel Simon in a statement on Turkish journalist, Ahmet Hakan, who was assaulted by four men in Istanbul: "Turkish journalists have been jailed, harassed, insulted, and sued, but this physical attack makes clear that press freedom is being further undermined in Turkey. Authorities must take immediate action to ensure that all those responsible for this attack are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The right of Ahmet Hakan to express himself is guaranteed under Turkish law and must be protected."


Raymond Snoddy ‏@RaymondSnoddy on Twitter: "Former FT editor Andrew Gowers is nothing if not courageous - PR director for Leahman Brothers, BP during great oil spill and now Glencore."


The News Media Association in a submission to the Government: "The NMA believes that business rates relief should apply to all properties which are involved in the production of local newspapers, irrespective of the type of property occupied or the size of publisher. Some of our members still have properties in town centres and it is important that they continue, where possible, to have a presence on the high street so they remain central to the communities they serve."


David Cameron told the Conservative party conference the reason polls were wrong in the run-up to the General Election was because: "Britain and Twitter are not the same thing."

Thursday, 10 September 2015

Media Quotes of the Week: From press slams door on 'open' BBC plan for 100 shared journalists to arsenic and strychnine cure for a broken editor



BBC director-general Tony Hall in his speech on an 'open BBC': 'We will open up the BBC to other news providers, through a new partnership which will help local journalism to thrive."


The Times [£] in a leader: "As the chequered history of nationalised industries shows, corporations operating in a protected market have an inherent tendency to laziness and bureaucracy. This is true of the BBC, too. It increasingly exhibits (in the phrase of George Osborne) imperial ambitions. These are a threat to newspapers far older than the BBC. Instead of cosmetic palliative, the corporation should decide now on either charging a subscription for its online news or getting out of the publishing business. There is no third way."


The Telegraph in a leader: "As the corporation faces the renewal of its Royal Charter and the licence fee that underpins its £5 billion budget, one of the issues it faces is that its vast regional news operation is putting local newspapers and other commercial media out of business. They cannot compete with a rival that has near-limitless resources and the ability to give away its news for free.
The almost surreal response offered by Lord Hall to this concern was the creation of 'a network of 100 public service reporters across the country' who will provide video and other content for commercial media outlets. In effect, the BBC’s answer to a problem caused by there being too many BBC journalists providing local news is to recruit more BBC journalists to provide local news."


News Media Association vice chairman and Johnston Press chief executive Ashley Highfield, quoted by Press Gazette"It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the BBC’s proposal - to create a network of 100 local public service reporters for towns and cities ‘run by the BBC’ and with the BBC itself able to ‘compete to win the contract’ – are anything other than BBC expansion into local news provision and recruitment of more BBC local journalists through the back door."


Roy Greenslade on his MediaGuardian blog: "Newspaper publishers, although they plead for cooperation, really want the BBC to fold its tent and walk away in the misguided belief that it will stop their audiences from deserting them. Meanwhile, who is the loser? The public, of course, which is getting less and less information at a local and regional level."

Gareth Davies ‏@Gareth_Davies09 on Twitter: "So, the BBC is going to share content with local papers. How? Sending our stories back to us after they've nicked them?"


Kelvin MacKenzie interviewed in the Sunday Times [£]: “If I was doing it now, I would be editing The Sun from Wormwood Scrubs. I never asked where stories came from.”


Hugo Rifkind ‏@hugorifkind on Twitter: "One day somebody will chase Michael Crick down a street, demanding to know why he chased somebody else down a street."

Ian Katz ‏@iankatz1000  on Twitter: "@MichaelLCrick has done some great doorsteps in his time but this one is up there.."


David Yelland ‏@davidyelland on Twitter: "Kudos to my old paper for leading a turnaround in national mood. Wonderful. It will save lives. @TheSun #AylanKurdi"


Photographer Nilufer Demir, of the Dogan News Agency, who took the picture of Aylan Kurdi, speaking to CNN: “I thought the only thing for me to do was to take their photographs to make sure Turkey and the world sees this..I thought, 'This is the only way I can express the scream of his silent body.' "


Martin Shipton, chair of the NUJ’s Trinity Mirror group chapel: “Once again Trinity Mirror has announced a development of its newsroom model in tandem with job losses. The group’s strategy for audience growth is based on greatly increasing website clicks - yet reducing the number of writers will make that more difficult to achieve. We are extremely concerned by the potential implications of setting individual click targets for journalists. At its worst, this could encourage reporters to sensationalise stories, to trivialise the news and make news out of trivia, and to give up on more challenging, public interest journalism that takes time to research and deliver."



Chris Morley, NUJ Northern and Midlands organiser, on plans by Newsquest to cut the number of staff photographers in York, Bradford and Darlington: "Newsquest is clearly stripping away its support for quality, professional staff photography. This leaves this business reliant on the public or submitted pictures from vested interests or freelance photographers, often those it has made redundant. The NUJ has warned this is detrimental to the journalism being produced because independence of content creation is compromised. Reporters cannot, and will not, take up the slack as they do not have the time and have not had the training or support or equipment. This represents Newsquest completing the first part of making its news an amateur pursuit."


A spokesperson for Tony Blair after the Independent Press Standards Organisation rejected his complaint against the Daily Mail: "It would seem that the truth counts for little in the eyes of IPSO."


Kay Burley ‏@KayBurley on Twitter: "I don't buy @TheSun says Corbyn to loud cheers from the audience. It is biggest selling paper in UK #LabourDebate."


Les Hinton on the stresses of being an editor, in the British Journalism Review: "No Murdoch editor suffered more than Arthur Christiansen (pictured) in his 24 years at the Daily Express. In Headlines All My Life, he writes: 'The telephone constantly rang. Wherever Beaverbrook went, the telephone followed.' When he cracked under the pressure, a dodgy Harley Street doctor injected Christiansen for 12 days with a preparation of strychnine, iron and arsenic. This treatment restored his broken confidence but seemed a little extreme to me. Reading this story as a teenager, I resolved never to work at close quarters with an overbearing proprietor. Not everything works out in life."

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