Media Quotes of the Week: From mapping the local press jobs disaster to should an editor be whipped?

A key finding from new local press study Mapping Changes in local news 2015-2017: more bad news for democracy?: "There were 30 instances of job cuts announced over a 17-month period involving the loss of 418 jobs. Newsquest, with 12 announcements affecting 139 jobs, led the way, followed by Trinity Mirror (at least 102 jobs) and Johnston Press (100 jobs). In addition to the job cuts, reorganisations affected a further 83 jobs, and there were six newspaper office closures, with journalists often being moved long distances away from the communities they serve."

NUJ BBC rep Cath Saunt on the NUJ website: "Now, along with provincial newspapers - such a vital part of our democracy and free speech for more than three hundred years - local radio is facing another round of cuts. The number of journalists is being whittled away. BBC Radio and TV across the English regions is facing cuts of £15 million pounds. There are many who fear its complete demise in the not too distant future. Now digital is king and news is becoming more and more remote, faceless and centralised...We must hang on to our district reporters and their offices, to our radio stations, to the people we trust to report the news accurately and fairly. Local news DOES matter - in an era of fake news and click bait - it matters more than ever before."

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism on the launch of Bureau Local: "We believe local journalists are crucial in holding power to account. But their ability to do this is being threatened as newsrooms cut budgets and staff alongside the time and resources given to much-needed investigative reporting...The Bureau Local will build an unprecedented network of journalists and tech experts across the country who will work together to find and tell stories that matter to local communities."

Owen Jones in the Guardian on the Daily Mail: "The newspaper’s decision to objectify the legs of the country’s most prominent female politicians – focusing on what they look like rather than what they stand for – represents one of its many lows. But while it should be mocked, parodied, ridiculed, it should terrify us: because it is indicative of what is happening in Brexit Britain."

Daily Mail in a statement, published by Press Gazette: “For goodness sake, get a life! Sarah Vine’s piece, which was flagged as light-hearted, was a side-bar alongside a serious political story. It appeared in an 84-page paper packed with important news and analysis, a front page exclusive on cost-cutting in the NHS and a health supplement devoted to women’s health issues. For the record, the Mail was the paper which, more than any other, backed Theresa May for the top job. Again for the record, we often comment on the appearance of male politicians including Cameron’s waistline, Osborne’s hair, Corbyn’s clothes – and even Boris’s legs. Is there a rule that says political coverage must be dull or has a po-faced BBC and left-wing commentariat, so obsessed by the Daily Mail, lost all sense of humour… and proportion?”

Marina Hyde in the Guardian on Mail columnist Katie Hopkins: "Deep down, she wants a Vanity Fair cover saying 'The Alt-right Brits Are Coming', in which she and Nigel like Patsy and Liam were. To read Katie Hopkins is to know that she would have disagreed with the Enlightenment if she thought there was a Loose Women appearance in it."

Laura Davison, NUJ national organiser, on subs losing their jobs at the Telegraph as work is outsourced to PA: "This news will come as another body blow to Telegraph staff; many of those at risk will be long serving people who live and breathe the paper. Members will want to know why the management is prepared to take the risk of outsourcing subbing when other companies have tried it and the track record is one of abject failure. It also concerning what affect the cuts will have on the on digital operation. Subs work across print and digital and their contribution is essential to the papers efforts in this regard. We will use the consultation process to urge the paper to reconsider and keep jobs in house."

Observer readers' editor Stephen Pritchard on complaints about columnist Nick Cohen swearing at Corbyn supporters: "Let’s be clear: Nick Cohen should not have sworn at Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters in his column last week, headlined “Don’t tell me you weren’t warned about Corbyn”. It was against the spirit of our guidelines, which state that swear words are rarely acceptable in text and then usually only when quoting others. His highly charged piece urged Corbyn’s allies to recognise that they were backing the wrong man as Labour leader and concluded: 'In my respectful opinion, your only honourable response will be to stop being a fucking fool by changing your fucking mind.' Not regular Observer prose, by any measure."

Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday: "How much longer can Turkey be allowed to stay in Nato? If this alliance really does exist to defend freedom how can it tolerate a member whose government has flung so many journalists into prison without any sort of due process?"

Kareem Shaheen in the Guardian: "Scores of imprisoned Turkish journalists face a Kafkaesque nightmare of legal limbo, farcical charge sheets, maltreatment and even solitary confinement in the country that locks up more reporters than any other in the world." 

Steward Gardiner, a Knutsford town councillor, quoted in the Guardian, after George Osborne held a meeting with local party members about his new job as editor of the Evening Standard: “When he [Osborne] was chancellor, he had to be in London on far more occasions than he will have to be as the editor of this newspaper. This newspaper is finished at lunchtimes so he can still do all the stuff on the parliamentary estate on the daytime. ”

Tom Watson‏@tom_watson on Twitter: "On George Osborne: It is intolerable for the operation of a free press that an editor of a major newspaper is subject to a party whip."

Media Quotes of the Week: From reporter tells Corbyn 'we ask the questions' to an image of a bombed out boy in Aleppo brings hope and despair

Sky News reporter to Jeremy Corbyn, quoted by the Mirror: "We live in a free country. It's about what I want to ask, not what you want me to ask about."

The Daily Telegraph in a leader: "The Guardian stated that “Jeremy Corbyn, famed for standing up for his principles, sat down for them”. Only it was all a sham. The Labour leader did have a seat on the train and in CCTV footage released by Virgin, the train operator, he can be seen occupying it.The man who has supposedly brought us the 'new politics' turns out to be just as a shameless an exponent of the media stunt as all the others, only less competent."

The Guardian in a leader: "No one can pretend that traingate is one of most important news stories of the era. All the same it is a very emblematic tale of our times. For one thing, it would not have happened in the pre-internet age at all, because even if Mr Corbyn had actually been compelled to sit on a train carriage floor on the way to Newcastle a generation ago, no one would have been there to capture an image of it, no newspaper would have been able to post the video of his denunciation of privatisation, and there would have been no CCTV footage of him walking past unreserved and unoccupied seats either. Whether the whole thing was an amateurish political stunt by the Labour leader, as Mr Branson implies, or rotten treatment by a privatised company, as Mr Corbyn claimed, no one else would have ever heard about it anyway."

Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump on Twitter: "It is being reported by virtually everyone, and is a fact, that the media pile on against me is the worst in American political history!"

 

The NUJ Newsquest London chapel in a statement: "Newsquest's willingness to lie to the trade press, by denying just how desperately under-resourced its newsrooms are, came as no surprise to the teams working in them. Our journalists remain in the dark about what the managing director's plans are, because he has not communicated with us. This chips away at our morale and emotional well-being week by week. Newspapers covering Merton and Epsom have been staffed by lone trainees with no permanent editor for months, while the 142-year-old Richmond and Twickenham Times will have just one trainee reporter from September. ”

Former BBC director general Mark Thompson in the Sunday Times Magazine [£] on the sacking of Jeremy Clarkson: “Clarkson can be a deeply objectionable individual, and I say that as a friend. I don’t think people should punch their colleagues. It’s hard to keep them if they do. But I would say his pungent, transgressive, slightly out-of-control talent was something the BBC could ill afford to lose. He spoke to people who didn’t find much else in the BBC. The fact no one could ever quite believe the BBC allowed Top Gear to go out was a precious thing to hang on to. As a fan, I regret its passing.”

Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday: "Anjem Choudary, broadcasting’s favourite Islamist loudmouth, was and is a vain, bloviating, blowhard fraud, another boozy drug-taking low-life posing as a serious person. He found a role and fools to indulge him, many in the same media who now queue up to rejoice at his imprisonment."

Piers Morgan interviewed in The Times [£]: “This idea that you can’t ever break the law as a journalist is plainly ridiculous. Sometimes it’s an essential tool of journalism. And to pretend otherwise is very naive about the reality. Whether it’s Wikileaks or MPs’ expenses, law-breaking by journalists is fine if public interest outweighs the criminality and you can express why you could only get this information through illegal means. It’s perfectly reasonable.”

Press Recognition Panel chairman David Wolfe QC, as reported by Press Gazette: "Keen to ensure that everybody has the fullest opportunity to respond to the application so that we in turn have the fullest possible basis to make a robust and independent decision on Impress’s application, the board has today decided to defer its consideration of the Impress application to allow a 20 working day further call for information."

Mustafa al-Sarout, the Aleppo-based journalist whose film of young Omran Daqneesh after he was pulled from the rubble of a bombed building went viral, quoted by the Guardian: “I’ve seen so many children rescued out of the rubble, but this child, with his innocence, he had no clue what was going on. He put his hand on his face and saw blood. He didn’t know even what happened to him. I’ve photographed a lot of airstrikes in Aleppo, but there was so much there in his face, the blood and the dust mixed, at that age.”

The Times [£] in a leader: "Since heartrending pictures of the five-year-old boy flashed round the globe, doctors who patched him up have expressed anger that it takes an apparently random image to focus international attention on a disaster the world seems to be trying to ignore. Their frustration is understandable. Omran was lucky. The photographer who took his picture had already helped to pick three dead children from the rubble. The traumatised boy has become a symbol nevertheless of hope as well as despair."

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Media Quotes of the Week: From battling a bullying businessman to the journalist who (almost) always backed Leicester to be champions

Business correspondent Oliver Shah, who has led the way on uncovering the BHS story, on Sir Philip Green in the Sunday Times [£]: "Later that month, he tried — and failed — to get the editor to rein in the story. 'I’m gonna call Rupert Murdoch [ultimate owner of The Sunday Times] on Monday morning because this is unacceptable,' he ranted at me. 'This has got to stop.' It did not. As I continued to dig, rival journalists on other papers expressed amazement that I was being allowed to take on Green. One gave me a front-page story on BHS. 'There’s no way my editor will let me print it, so you may as well have it,' he shrugged."

Sir Philip Green quoted by Oliver Shah in the Sunday Times [£]: "“If you want to call me a liar, come round to my office on Monday, call me a liar to my face and face the consequences. How’s that, if you’re such a big f****** boy? Because you will get thrown through the f****** window.”

Reuters reports: "British retail tycoon Philip Green on Thursday hit out at UK lawmakers for leading what he called a 'trial by media' in relation to last week's fall into administration of department store BHS...The letter, which Green circulated to news media, marks his first public comments on BHS's administration. In the letter, he also criticised the media for writing 'much inaccurate and misleading' information."

Trinity Mirror in a statement: "Although The New Day has received many supportive reviews and built a strong following on Facebook, the circulation for the title is below our expectations. As a result, we have decided to close the title on 6 May 2016. Whilst disappointing, the launch and subsequent closure have provided new insights into enhancing our newspapers and a number of these opportunities will be considered over time.”

Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday: "I was just leaving the BBC’s Westminster studios on Thursday when Mr Livingstone stepped into an over-excited knot of political reporters. They looked like what they are – simultaneously a pack of snapping wolves, buzzing with self-righteousness, and a flock of bleating, conformist sheep, all thinking and saying exactly the same thing...At one point this stumbling, squawking carnival was joined by a barking dog. If it had gone on much longer, crowds of tourists would have gathered, mistaking it for an ancient London tradition. This is how politics is reported in this country, almost completely without thought."

Will Gore in the Independent: "In response to articles about Livingstone’s outburst, Holocaust deniers suddenly appear with alacrity, just as Islamophobes pop their heads above the parapet any time we write about refugees fleeing Syria. It is enough to make you wonder about the state of humanity. But it also raises practical questions for outlets such as The Independent: do we need to hire dozens of moderators to stem the tide; should we have a longer list of prohibited terms so we can automatically filter out the worst comments; or ought we simply to close comment boards? The more steps we take, the more we will be accused of stifling debate; hold back and ever more bile will slip through. Whatever course we steer, one thing is plain: responsibility for combatting discrimination lies with every right thinking person – it isn’t a subject for buck-passing."

International Federation of Journalists' president Jim Boumelha on the IFJ annual survey showing press freedom violations around the world: “This survey exposes a shocking toll of violations of media freedom and a woeful lack of willingness on the part of too many governments and authorities to act to defend journalists. But as it also shows journalists’ unions are ensuring there can be no hiding place for those who attack journalists or undermine media freedom. Whether in print or on the airwaves, in courts or international bodies, on the streets and in the workplaces journalists unions are standing up against the threats to media freedom.”

Feedback editor Rose Wild in The Times [£] on the paper's not carrying any reference to the Hillsborough inquests' verdicts in its first edition: " As soon as the first edition of the paper went out on Tuesday night, our choice of front-page stories was called into question by, among others, members of The Times staff...Our coverage of the 'unlawful killing' verdict in the Hillsborough inquiry, extensive as it was, was not flagged on the front, suggesting that we had overlooked both its significance in legal terms and its importance to the many people who had campaigned for this result for so long. The paper immediately realised it had made a mistake. In the second edition the front page was changed...The initial decision not to put the story on the front was because it had been running as a news story all day. But it was an error not to have a visual signal to the coverage inside."

Sun editor Tony Gallagher doorstepped by Channel 4 News' Paraic O'Brien and asked why his paper did not lead on Hillsborough inquests' verdict: "I'm afraid I am not talking about it at all."

Stig Abell, former director of the Press Complaints Commission, interviewed in the Guardian: “We were a small group trying to help members of the public while upholding the principle of freedom of expression. But the PCC’s phone-hacking report was wrong. And we were widely criticised for being insufficiently interested in hacking, which has a certain amount of truth to it. We were overwhelmed, and I spent two years trying to keep the PCC relevant as the scandal grew worse. Let’s be honest: it was an issue that bamboozled institutions a lot more powerful than the PCC."

Chris Frost, the chair of the NUJ’s Ethics Council, on why the union is backing would be press regulator Impress, as reported by Press Gazette: “Our view is that Impress represents the best opportunity we have for independent press regulation and for providing an alternative to those national newspapers and their publishers who continue to fail to take their responsibilities seriously by hiding their failings behind another pointless so-called regulator. We have welcomed Impress as the alternative press regulator because we want to see regulation which is both Leveson complaint and independent of publishers, whilst involving journalists on its board and with its future development.”

George Osborne at the Westminster correspondents' dinner, as reported by The Times [£]: “It is the irreverence of journalism; the challenging, sometimes infuriating, occasionally wayward, always invigorating free journalistic spirit that makes a free society truly free. Show me a country that controls its press and I will show you a government that controls its people."

John Mickelwait on Bloombergview: "This column should begin with a financial disclosure -- of the writer’s own ineptitude. For around 20 years, every August I have bet £20 on Leicester City to win their league. The wall of my office at The Economist in London was festooned with the resulting betting stubs, to be mocked by my colleagues who followed more successful teams. True, Leicester did once finish second -- but that was back in the 1928-29 season; their main battle in my lifetime has been to avoid relegation, a struggle they have lost seven times. Last summer, having moved to New York to work for Bloomberg, I missed making my routine bet; the odds being offered on Leicester winning the title were 5,000-1, but, somewhere deep down, I assumed it was £20 pounds saved."

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Media Quotes of the Week: From editors unite to fight RIPA to did media boob over page 3 cover up?

Press Gazette editor Dominic Ponsford: “It is unprecedented in my experience for every national newspaper editor to agree on anything. So it is highly significant that here [in a joint letter to the PM] they have said with once voice that RIPA needs tougher controls to protect journalists' sources. Giving police the ability to secretly view the phone records of law-abiding journalists is not compatible with an open democratic society.”

Edward Snowden

James Ball in the Guardian: "GCHQ’s bulk surveillance of electronic communications has scooped up emails to and from journalists working for some of the US and UK’s largest media organisations, analysis of documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals. Emails from the BBC, Reuters, the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, the Sun, NBC and the Washington Post were saved by GCHQ and shared on the agency’s intranet as part of a test exercise by the signals intelligence agency....New evidence from other UK intelligence documents revealed by Snowden also shows that a GCHQ information security assessment listed 'investigative journalists' as a threat in a hierarchy alongside terrorists or hackers."

Statement by Professionals for Information Privacy Coalition, which includes the NUJ, Law Society, Bar Council and The British Association of Social Workers: "Privacy and trust is crucially important to the British public and our professions. We need to be assured that certain data will always remain confidential in all but exceptional and extreme circumstances. Insufficient regard for professional confidentiality undermines the public’s trust in our individual members, organisations and our public institutions. We are united in our belief that the current system needs to be changed. We have seen a growing number of instances where data and surveillance powers have been seriously and repeatedly overused. This has included police using secret methods to expose journalistic sources and to monitor journalists' activities and it has also been revealed that the intelligence agencies have been spying on conversations between lawyers and their clients."

Guardian readers' editor Chis Elliott on the paper publishing the front cover of Charlie Hebdo:"I am aware that many Muslims, some of them friends and colleagues, will have been offended by the Guardian’s use of that image, and I am sorry for that. However, I believe the countervailing argument is that on this occasion the image of the cover had an important and legitimate news value. Showing the magazine’s response in the wake of the deaths was an important part of telling the story, and the Guardian did so in a measured, restrained fashion. It has to feel free to tell it in its own way."

Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday: "Using the excuse of terrorism – whose main victim is considered thought – Theresa May’s Home Office is making a law which attacks free expression in this country as it has never been attacked before. We already have some dangerous laws on the books. The Civil Contingencies Act can be used to turn Britain into a dictatorship overnight, if politicians can find an excuse to activate it. But the Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, now slipping quietly and quickly through Parliament, is in a way even worse. It tells us what opinions we should have, or should not have."

George Monbiot in the Guardian: "The BBC’s business reporting breaks its editorial guidelines every day by failing to provide alternative viewpoints. Every weekday morning, the Today programme grovels to business leaders for 10 minutes. It might occasionally challenge them on the value or viability of their companies, but hardly ever on their ethics. Corporate critics are shut out of its business coverage – and almost all the rest."

Grey Cardigan on TheSpinAlley: "AT LAST, a confession – and confirmation – of what I have been banging on about for what seems years. A senior suit – in this case Tom Thomson of the Herald & Times group in Glasgow – finally comes clean on the financial reality of the modern media business by admitting that 90% of his company’s revenue still comes from its flagship print title. In that case, I’m bound to ask once again why newspaper managers have butchered their titles by binning editions, closing district offices and massacring staff numbers while pumping out yesterday’s news tomorrow, just to piss millions of pounds up a profitless paywall. I await an answer with interest."

The Times  [£]: "The Sun will no longer feature topless models on page 3 after quietly dropping one of the most controversial traditions in British journalism. The Times understands that Friday’s edition of the paper was the last that will carry an image of a glamour model with bare breasts on that page, ending a convention that began in 1970, shortly after Rupert Murdoch bought the newspaper."

The Sun on Thursday: "Further to recent reports in all other media outlets, we would like to clarify that this is Page 3 and this is a picture of Nicole, 22, from Bournemouth. We would like to apologise on behalf of the print and broadcast journalists who have spent the last two days talking and writing about us."

Janice Turner in The Times: "The truth is that The Sun hung on to page 3 long after its sell-by date out of a cussed bunker mentality, a determination not to capitulate to leftie campaigners. Rebekah Brooks told me she didn’t abolish it just to defy those who assumed that, as the paper’s first woman editor, she would."

David Yelland @davidyelland on Twitter: "Alleged 'dropping of P3 at The Sun' must not divert us from fact many fine Sun staff were 'dropped in it' by past leadership at company...."

• Remember when The Sun made Page 3 an election issue? Vote Tory or the Page 3 girls get it

Media Quotes of the Week: From bullying in the media to is Twitter a 'left-wing electronic mob' ?

Stanistreet: 'Dreams shattered by bullying'

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, on bullying in the media: "It has been heart-breaking to deal with members whose dreams have been shattered because of the behaviour of their managers and of failure of employers to tackle bullying and bullies. I have heard testimonies from members who said, 'News editors threw reporters on to the same story, everyone was terrified of putting a foot wrong. People were put under such pressure. Reporters were effectively encouraged to shaft each other. It was such a demoralising situation' and from women journalists who had been offered promotion in return for having sex with their boss."

Roy Greenslade on his MediaGuardian blog on bullying: "Outsiders may wonder why adults put up with the MacKenzies and Dacres. The obvious answer is that they control people's livelihoods. It is a case of accepting it or getting out (and not "getting in" anywhere else). For too brief a period in the 1970s, the National Union of Journalists exercised enough power to save the jobs of those who dared to buck the system by standing up to the bullies. But the NUJ, having lost its fight to create closed shops, gradually lost its potency. And there is still not much constraint on the autocratic rule of popular paper editors."

Local World chief David Montgomery's vision for the future of local papers, as reported by Press Gazette: "On the smaller weekly titles a single individual, Content Manager, will skim largely online published content to create the newspaper in a single session or small number of sessions rather than a number of staff following a laborious and time-consuming schedule spanning many days of the week. On daily papers only a handful of Content Managers will be office bound and will orchestrate all products across the platforms." 

Grey Cardigan on TheSpinAlley: "While this is terrible news for Local World’s employees – despite several years of shedding talent, still some of the best in the business – it could well be good news for those just waiting in the wings for the big groups to get fed up with these troublesome regional titles and start returning them to local ownership where they truly belong. And all those redundant hacks launching proper, hyperlocal news websites must be rubbing their hands with glee. Monty’s pursuit of this Holy Grail is deluded, dangerous and desperately unfair on those who have carved out successful careers in our trade."

The International New York Times in a leader: "The global debate now taking place about intelligence agencies collecting information on the phone calls, emails and Internet use of private citizens owes much to The Guardian’s intrepid journalism. In a free society, the price for printing uncomfortable truths should not be parliamentary and criminal inquisition."

Frank La Rue, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, on the political reaction to revelations about secret surveillance programmes, as reported by the Guardian: "I have been absolutely shocked about the way the Guardian has been treated, from the idea of prosecution to the fact that some members of parliament even called it treason. I think that is unacceptable in a democratic society."

Raymond Snoddy ‏@RaymondSnoddy on Twitter: "Mail often criticised, correctly, for nastiness but another big campaign win - old media persuades new media to think again on child porn."

Patrick Smith of BuzzFeed: Patrick Smith ‏@psmith on Twitter: "Re: 'cat pictures', B2B journalism tends to just have 'pictures of middle aged white men in suits' so it's nice to be a bit creative."

Daniel Radcliffe on Sky News: "I don’t have Twitter and I don’t have Facebook and I think that makes things a lot easier. If you go on Twitter and tell everybody what you’re doing moment to and then claim you want a private life, then no one is going to take that request seriously."

Steve Dyson in InPublishing looks at the regional press in 10 years time: “Of the 78 dailies currently remaining, more than 30 sell less than 20,000 a day and will go weekly – or close – in the next five years; a similar number – perhaps more – will convert by 2023. The industry will mainly consist of two types of weekly publisher: regional ‘giants’ with shared online platforms; and local start-ups and buy-outs with hyperlocal blogging websites. The likes of Newsquest, Johnston Press, Newsquest, Trinity Mirror and Local World  will have changed out of all recognition, and will halve in number. The two that remain, along with the larger family firms, will publish fat, cat-killing weeklies covering cosmopolitan cities, large towns and urban counties where there are still enough readers and advertisers wanting regular and unique local insight in print.”

Darren Parkin commenting on HoldTheFrontPage: "One of the biggest problems facing newspaper groups right now is that the current decision-makers are hanging on to pensions and retirement plans that cash in before digital completely takes over. So why would they bother hastening the demise of something they understand over something they don’t? Too many newspaper boardrooms are filled with docile fifty-somethings who simply will not step aside and let the younger talent set the pace and the agenda for the future."

Peter Hitchens , in a letter to the Independent: "Twitter is a left-wing electronic mob, and I visit it only to promote my Mail on Sunday blog, and to respond to and correct the ignorant attacks that are sometimes made on me there. This activity is like unblocking the sink: necessary, disagreeable – but satisfying when you succeed and positively enjoyable when you hear the waste gurgling away down the drain."

Quotes of the Week: From Mail and Guardian go to war to Privy Council rejects press's charter

Two titles at war: Guardian top; Mail bottom

MI5 chief Andrew Parker, as reported by the Independent, claims Edward Snowden's leaks on surveillance by security services gave terrorists: "The gift to evade us and strike at will'

Daily Mail headline over leader on the Guardian: 'The paper that helps Britain's enemies'

The Guardian in a leader: "The Mail's leading article must be read in the context of a fervent discussion about press regulation in which it is leading the charge for journalists to be both free and trusted. But yesterday's editorial argues the opposite. It is a statement of anti-journalism: editors, it says, cannot be trusted. They must defer to the state."

Alan Rusbridger on BBC Radio 4's World at One: “You would have to be a terrorist who didn’t know how to tie his shoelaces not to believe that people were watching things on the internet and scooping up telephone calls. I don’t think some of this will come as a great surprise to terrorists."

Stephen Glover in the Mail: "I don’t accuse Mr Rusbridger of any lack of patriotism. I am sure he loves his country as much as anyone. But he does stand accused of the most stupendous arrogance and presumption." 

Will Hutton in the Observer: "Tea Party-style hatred, intransigence and inconsistency has transfixed the US. The danger is that the Mail will further push Britain into the same kind of mutual loathing, misdiagnosing opponents' positions and deafening debate. Perhaps by turning on his tormentors Miliband is doing more than his father's memory a service. Democracies – and their media – depend on minimal protocols of engagement being observed. It would be to everyone's advantage if they were."

Culture secretary Maria Miller speaking in Parliament, as reported by BBC News: "The committee of the Privy Council is unable to recommend the press's proposal for a royal charter be granted. Whilst there are areas where it is acceptable, it is unable to comply with some important Leveson principles and government policy."

Press industry statement: "This proposed Royal Charter has already been universally rejected by the industry and it is even more regrettable that the industry will have no opportunity to take part in the discussions between the political parties over possible amendments."

Daily Telegraph in a leader: "This is the first time it has been proposed that an industry should be forced to sign up to a Royal Charter rather than voluntarily accede to one. Moreover, the cross-party charter – cobbled together without any discussion with the industry – would be underpinned by legislation, thereby giving it the very statutory basis that David Cameron rightly said would be 'crossing the Rubicon'. For all their protestations to the contrary, our politicians are proposing to bring back statutory press control for the first time in more than 300 years. This is unacceptable."

Rupert Murdoch ‏@rupertmurdoch on Twitter: "BBC massive taxpayer funded mouthpiece for tiny circulation leftist Guardian. Meanwhile print media about to be gagged to protect toffs."

Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph: "Mr Grayling’s Bill of Rights should incorporate a clause about freedom of speech and the press, ideally giving Britons the same protection as afforded to Americans by their First Amendment to the Constitution. It would help judges such as Lord Justice Leveson to understand the importance and definition of a free press. It would help politicians see that the Leveson proposals would, in the words of the New York Times, 'chill free speech and threaten the survival of small publishers and internet sites'. And it would, moreover, put temptation out of Mr Miliband’s way."

Alex Massie on the Spectator: "Perhaps the Mail went too far (though I see nothing wrong with it despatching a reporter to a memorial service for one of Miliband’s uncles. Newspapers attend funerals and memorial services all the time. What’s different about this one?). But even if it did, so what? That’s one of the reasons for having a free press: so papers can go too far. Better that, certainly, than that they don’t go far enough."

The Telegraph in a leader:  "We recognise Mr Miliband’s filial sincerity in defending his father’s memory; but it should not be used to undermine one of this country’s most precious liberties. If the Left wants a moral cause worth fighting for, then let us hear it defending, unequivocally, the freedom of the press."

Ex-Trotskyist Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday: "Our politics are bland enough without the press going soft and soppy as well, and how wretched it is that this row has given aid and comfort to the Polly Toynbee tendency, who for years have longed to yank out the teeth of the conservative press. But let it be to the point, and about real live issues. Our opponents may well be wrong but it does not make them bad. Even revolutionaries sometimes have a point, and many of them – though not all of them – grow up and turn into people like me." 

Miles Barter ‏@MilesBarter on Twitter: "When Thatcher died I couldn't stop myself jumping with joy. So I can't complain that the Daily Mail mocked a dead Marxist." #FreePress

Media Quotes of the Week: From Mair monsters Mayor to journalists' pay plunges by 12 per cent

Mair and Johnson (Pic: BBC)

 Eddie Mair to Boris Johnson on the Andrew Marr Show: "You're a nasty piece of work, aren't you?"

Darius Guppy in the Spectator defends Boris: "Mr Mair attacks the Mayor of London for agreeing, when in his mid twenties, to supply a friend – me – with the address of a News of the World journalist so that the journalist in question can be given the hiding which most of us secretly admit such people deserve...As we all know, Mr Johnson never provided me with any address and it is perfectly clear from the tape recording in question that he was simply placating a friend he considered to be letting off steam. But while this may rightly exonerate the Mayor of London, my own line has always been somewhat different – and consistent: my only regret being that I was never able to finish the job."

Tony Parsons in the Daily Mirror: "How did we get to this? A noble and decent impulse to protect the rights of families like the Dowlers and the McCanns has been cynically hijacked by jumped-up political pygmies and sleazy celebrities. You would never guess it from all the Hacked Off propaganda, but newspapers like the one you are holding were emphatically on the side of the parents of Milly Dowler and Madeleine McCann. We desperately wanted them to find their daughters, we sincerely wanted their families restored. We wanted it as journalists, as parents and as human beings. If we felt any other way then you – the reader – would put us out of business overnight."

Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger in the Guardian: "We badly need reform. We also need a free press. Achieving both can't be done at speed or in the dark."

Lord Guy Black in the House of Lords on exemplary damages: "I’m sure they are almost certainly contrary to European law and so will collapse or be struck down. I think they are a constitutional nightmare."

Peter Hitchens on MailOnline on David Cameron:"Mr Slippery set up the original Leveson Inquiry in a short-sighted attempt to look good. By the time he realised he had created a great clanking, devouring monster, it was too late to stop. So he pretended that he would prevent the Leveson report from turning into state regulation of the press. Then he realised that he couldn’t, so he disguised his defeat as a decisive act of strength. That was when he abruptly halted the talks in which he was being wrestled to the ground by the press-hating lobby of spiteful, short-sighted leftists and vengeful celebrities.  Finally, he was responsible for what will come to be seen as one of the stupidest and most shameful moments in British political history."

Matthew Engel looking back at his days on the Northampton Chronicle and Echo, as reported by HoldTheFrontPage: "Regret no. 1 is that I failed to appreciate what fun it all was and that I would never ever have quite so much enjoyment from journalism again. To have a job that allowed me, at 21, 22, 23, to be at the very heart of a community, to gain an understanding of it I could get in no other way and to write with a surprising amount of freedom about it."

Geoffrey Cox QC, for Sun deputy editor Geoff Webster who is alleged to have authorised reporters to pay £8,000 in total to unnamed public officials in 2010 and 2011, told Westminster Magistrates’ Court: “Mr Webster was engaged in nothing more than doing his job. There is nothing to explain the reason why he has been charged.The only wrong he is said to have done is to approve a number of payments, in one case to an unknown public official.”

Bob Garfield on Comment Is Free: "Text, audio and video are rapidly converging. As journalism brands grow to look more like one another, we are seeing unmistakable signs of publishers slouching toward an ethical lowest common denominator. Anyone who cares deeply about quality, independent journalism should pray for paywalls  and other subscription models to take hold. Because in the world of the smart and the desperate, desperate always has the last word." 

Michael White on his Guardian politics blog: "Fleet Street is right to protest that there is still much wrong with the cross-party proposals over Leveson, but wrong to say 300 years of press freedom are at stake. It just isn't true. A system of self-regulation with a flick of external monitoring – not as tough as what the tabloids seek for the NHS this week – will just provide a new battleground with no permanent winner. The real threat to newspapers in 2013 is commercial viability in the internet age, not government censorship at a time when censorship looks ever more difficult in free societies."

Professor Ian Hargreaves in the NCTJ's Journalists At Work report, looking back over the last decade: "The pay of journalists has fallen behind general inflation and behind the overall level of pay inflation in the UK, with today’s average journalist salary standing at £27,500 per annum, a fall of 12% in real terms. This weakness in journalists’ pay reflects primarily conditions in newspaper journalism."

Media Quotes of the Week: From the Oscar Pistorius case to will Peter Hitchens end up in jail?

The Independent on the Oscar Pistorius case: "The slow grind of South Africa's justice system, which barely recognises contempt of court, has been unable to keep pace in the era of social media and rolling TV news. As a consequence, the first disabled global sports superstar has found himself deluged with accusations and insinuations masquerading as facts."

The Daily Telegraph in an editorial: "In refusing to 'cross the Rubicon' of statutory regulation, David Cameron displayed commendable courage. But now he must summon that courage again. If the Royal Charter proposals are allowed to drift into the sand, we risk ending up with confusion and chaos – the three parties utterly divided; Lord Puttnam’s slapdash proposals slipping in through the back door; separate regimes in Scotland and perhaps Northern Ireland; and a press that has been free for 300 years trammelled and intimidated by those with privilege and power. Such people claim to be determined to make Fleet Street suffer for its sins. They do not seem to care that if they get their way, the health of our democracy will suffer even more."

The Guardian in an editorial: "It is ironic – to put it at its lowest – that the senior ranks of the Met and other forces have taken advantage of the phone-hacking affair to try to make it more difficult for their officers to work with journalists to disclose information which is being concealed to the detriment of the public interest."

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, as reported by the Telegraph, to a reporter: "Why do you look at me?" Reporter: "Because it's your press conference."

Steve Dyson on HoldTheFrontPage on ads for the Daily Mirror's free iPad edition appearing in Trinity Mirror's daily regional papers: "These Daily Mirror iPad adverts in regional dailies are clumsy, wrong-footed and potentially very damaging. Worse, the national, red top parent has barged in wearing its hobnailed size-13s at the worst possible time – just when staff are desperately trying to muster enough resource in the latest restructure that sees scores of regional hacks axed to help fund dozens of new Daily Mirror staff."

Lord Lester in the Sun: "Free speech in this country is in grave danger of being stifled by party political gamesmanship. The threat comes from politicians who have hijacked an attempt to reform our out-of-date, repressive libel law by clogging the Defamation Bill with wrecking amendments. They and the Hacked Off campaign want to use the Bill — which is currently going through Parliament and should be purely about libel reform — to force through a draconian version of Sir Brian Leveson’s proposals."

Dan Hodges on his Telegraph blog: "If we want our press operating under the protective blanket of Leveson, fine. But let’s not continue to peddle the myth that blanket regulation won’t prove restrictive to good journalists, as well as bad. We don’t need to stare into the crystal ball to know what impact Leveson will have on public interest journalism. We can see it every day, as another journalist or public official receives the 6am knock at the door."

Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday: "I genuinely fear that I will go to prison before I die, for writing or saying something that is no longer allowed. I have met quite a lot of people who hate me and my views so much that they would very much like this to happen."