Media Quotes of the Week: From Government's FoI blocking 'Department of Secrets' shamed to worldwide press freedom at a historic low point

Julian Richards, the openDemocracy editor-in-chief, quoted by the Guardian after openDemocracy won a legal victory against the UK government which forces transparency on a secretive unit accused of ‘blacklisting’ Freedom of Information requests from journalists, campaigners and others: “This tribunal ruling completely vindicates openDemocracy’s journalism, which has shown how freedom of information is being undermined at the very heart of government. There is a toxic culture of secrecy and evasion that has to stop. We should not have had to go all the way to a tribunal to force the Cabinet Office to comply with basic transparency requirements.”

The Times [£] in a leader: "This ruling is a victory not only for openDemocracy, which was taken to court by the Cabinet Office, but for all those who recognise the need for the government to be subjected to rigorous scrutiny. There are increasing concerns about the department’s policy of stonewalling requests from journalists and the public until being ordered to respond by the regulator. In doing so it has been accused of failing to meet its obligation in either the letter or the principle of the Freedom of Information Act. The result has been that successful requests have fallen to the lowest level since the law was introduced 20 years ago...the judgment is particularly shaming for Michael Gove, the relevant minister, who had sought to brush off investigations into the workings of the clearing house as 'ridiculous and tendentious'.”

Andrew Neil, interviewed by Susannah Butter in the Evening Standard, on the chances of Piers Morgan joining GB News: “It would be nice to have him. But he’s got his own idea of what he is worth and we have a slightly different idea of what he’s worth. He is in a lucky situation because ITV are continuing to pay him a tonne of money so he doesn’t have to do anything in the short run. I don’t think he’s going to go anywhere else in the UK. If he has a huge American offer that’s a different matter. No one in the UK can compete with that but if he’s going to do more UK news TV I hope it will be with us.”

Tom McTague in The Atlantic in a profile of Boris Johnson: "Johnson often carries a notepad around, a habit from his days as a journalist. A former aide told me that you know he has taken your point seriously if he writes it down. He runs meetings like an editor, surveying his staff for ideas, always looking for 'the line'—cutting through dry and occasionally contradictory facts to identify what he sees as the heart of the matter, the story."

“ 'What am i doing this for?' Johnson asked his aides, looking at his schedule for the day and seeing a slot carved out to talk to me. 'It’s for the profile I advised you not to do,' James Slack, Johnson’s then–director of communications, said."

Sathnam Sanghera in The Times [£]: "My heart sank on hearing that the print circulation of my hometown newspaper, the Express & Star, has dropped to around 20,000 a day. In the 1980s it was selling 350,000 every evening, the editor would send writers to Afghanistan, the Gulf War, Sarajevo, and, on my first day on the Financial Times, I did myself no favours whatsoever by pointing out to new colleagues that their paper sold less nationally than the local paper I’d started out on. It still operates a fine website, but the slow death in general of local newspapers is nothing less than a national tragedy."

Joshi Herrmann, publisher of digital newspaper Manchester Mill, on Press Gazette: “There is no long-term viable solution to the problems in local journalism that doesn’t come from getting people to pay for local news again.”

Van Morrison on Lewis Merenstein, the producer of his classic album Astral Weeks, in a GQ interview: "He liked to wind up the press because he said the media were like insects. He used to tell lies to people. One journalist asked him what it was like working with Van Morrison and he said, 'It’s terrible. He put a chair through the booth window while we were recording.' I asked him why he said that and he said because the press are idiots and they’ll print anything."

Hugo Rifkind in The Times [£]: "The Leveson Inquiry was shaming for newspapers, but they — we — still fought off the encroachment of government into who got to say what and how. It seems obvious to me that state regulation of social media is the same fight on a bigger battlefield. Yet traditional media distrusts social media too much to go into battle on its behalf."

Jason Rezaian in the Washington Post: "While the Trump era may be over, attacks on journalists in far-flung corners of the world are a frightening reminder that the former president’s record of inciting harm against reporters is an indelible part of his legacy — one that will have residual effects for generations if President Biden doesn’t act."

• Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, quoted by the Washington Post: “If you look at the data we maintain, especially on journalists in prison around the world, there’s a consensus in the advocacy and research communities that press freedom is at a historic low point.” 

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My Media Quotes of the Year 2018: InPublishing

My Media Quotes of the Year 2018 are up on InPublishing: Trump, Dacre, Brexit, Johnston Press, Leveson, Windrush and Cambridge Analytica scandals plus how many journalists did it take to consume a 13-bottle lunch? You can read them here:

Plus, here are some quotes from this year I liked, but came after the InPublishing deadline:

Sathnam Sanghera in The Times [£]: "The internet has not only taken advertising from local newspapers but has helped to accelerate the idea that anything “regional” is crap. The result is nothing less than a national tragedy. Corrupt politicians will go unchecked, the relationships that hold communities together will go unmarked, local heroes uncelebrated. Moreover, we have let local papers go without even really thinking about the consequences. I suspect that, one day, someone will have to reinvent them."

Lionel Barber, giving the James Cameron Lecture at City University, lists the threats to serious financial journalism as:

• The army of public relations advisers employed by individuals and companies with thin skins and deep pockets 
• “Black PR” — sometimes pushed by ex-spooks — that uses social media platforms to attack and undermine reputations and independent journalism 
• The rising power of private markets versus public markets, making it far harder for journalists to access information 
• The encroachment of the law via gagging injunctions, non-disclosure agreements and the chilling new notion of confidentiality 
• And, yes, the spectre of state-sponsored regulation of the press.

The Times in a leader [£]: "When The Times uncovered evidence which showed that Kate Osamor, the Labour MP for Edmonton, had not only known about her son’s arrest for drugs offences — about which she had denied all knowledge until his conviction in October — but had even written a letter to the judge pleading for leniency, our reporter went to Ms Osamor’s house to ask for her reaction to our story. Ms Osamor’s response was to tell our reporter that she “should have come down here with a bat and smashed your face in”. She told him to “f***” off, called police after accusing him of stalking her and hurled a bucket of water at him.

This was an outrageous way to treat our colleague. Ms Osamor has now rightly resigned from her job as the shadow international development secretary. Yet it is telling that her resignation statement included no acknowledgement that she had lied about her knowledge of her son’s drug arrest nor did it contain any word of apology to The Times or our reporter. Similarly the statement by Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, accepting her resignation included no criticism of her behaviour.

Across the world, attacks and threats against journalists are on the rise. This is no longer limited to authoritarian countries. In the past year reporters have been killed in Slovakia and Malta. Populist politicians in western countries use increasingly violent language against journalists. President Trump routinely refers to the press as the “enemy of the people”. Ms Osamor — with Mr Corbyn’s approval — did not just throw a bucket of water at our reporter, she threw it at all of us."

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Media Quotes of the Week: Shameful - IPCC rejects reporter's harassment notice appeal over fraudster investigation to US support for Newsquest strike

Roy Greenslade on his MediaGuardian blog on the decision by the Independent Police Complaints Commission to reject an appeal against the harassment notice issued by the Met to Croydon Advertiser chief reporter Gareth Davies, who was investigating a fraudster (top): "This decision by the IPCC is a disgrace. Davies acted as any reporter worth his or her salt should have done. He approached a convicted person and, when rebuffed, he did no more than send a follow-up email. This was not harassment. It was journalism."

Croydon Central MP Gavin Barwell  in a letter to the IPCC: "Mr Davies is a well-regarded local reporter who was investigating a story that was clearly in the public interest. The individual that Mr Davies was investigating complained to the police who, without checking whether Ms Desai’s claims were true, issued a warning to Mr Davies advising him to desist. This is a very worrying attack on press freedom and to that end I have sent a copy of this letter to the Home Secretary, the Secretary of State for Justice and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sports."

David Banks ‏@DBanksy  on Twitter: "Peter Preston, ex-Guardian Ed said a reporter's most important quality was persistence. Met Police now define that as one email, one visit."

Press Gazette has launched a petition to have the harassment notice cancelled.

Richard Desmond, in an interview with the Guardian, claims that if he could read just one daily paper, excluding his own titles, it would be the Guardian: “No, I’m not joking. I like the Guardian. I think it tells the truth.”

Sathnam Sanghera in The Times [£] on Katie Hopkins: "Which brings us to the not uncommon theory that Hopkins is damaged in some way. You don’t have to be Oliver Sacks to understand that those who target the vulnerable, as Hopkins does routinely, often turn out to be vulnerable themselves. And journalism, like banking, is one of those trades where dysfunction is actually rewarded."

Steven Swinford in the Daily Telegraph on Justice Secretary Michael Gove's grammar guidance for civil servants: "The guidance also included instructions never to start a sentence with 'however'. However, Mr. Gove himself frequently used that word to start a sentence when he was a journalist."

Mick Hume in the Sunday Times [£]: "Listening to those who want more controls over the hated 'popular press', it helps to recall that the word 'popular' has its origins in the Latin populus — the people. Attacks on the 'popular press' and 'mass media' are often codewords for the elite’s fear and loathing of the populace, the masses who are supposedly stupid enough to be duped by media messages telling them how to vote, whom to hate and which celebrities to worship."

Former BBC editorial director Roger Mosey in The Times [£]: "BBC local radio identified for its staff its typical target listeners, imagined as a middle-aged couple called Dave and Sue. A leaflet for all local radio stations included a section on their hypothetical attitudes. 'Now it’s an established everyday reality that Dave and Sue live and work alongside and socialise with people from different ethnic backgrounds,' producers were told. 'They are interested in and open-minded about adapting aspects of other cultures into their own lives — in entertainment, medicine, belief, food, clothes and language. Their community-minded attitudes mean they are interested both in projects which advance social cohesion in this country and in international development issues.' It must have been something of a shock to the writers of this leaflet when many real-life Daves and Sues joined Ukip."

Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall in a missive to Mosey, also reported by The Times [£]: “Does anyone in the BBC’s policy unit/Thought Police read Richard Littlejohn? They should. He reflects popular opinion far more accurately than the views of those whose idea of a good night out is reading the Indy over a vegetarian meal in a Somali restaurant.”

Bernie Lunzer president of the US media union News Guild-CWA, in a message of support to NUJ strikers at Newsquest: "What these journalists are fighting for, we are all fighting for. Our members face exactly this kind of greed and arrogance from Gannett and other corporate media owners. They reward top executives with fat salaries and bonuses but plead poverty when it comes to raises for employees, even though they are working harder than ever. In the strongest possible terms, the Guild calls upon Newsquest/Gannett to show its employees the respect they deserve by paying them fair wages, maintaining adequate staffing levels, ending the constant cycle of cuts and reinvesting in its news products."

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