Friday 21 January 2011

Quotes of the week: From Blair slugs Morgan to why you shouldn't read your own newspaper

Alastair Campbell in his diaries about Tony Blair's opinion of Piers Morgan, then editor of the Mirror: "Despite my anger at the Piers Morgan interview being about anything other than the budget, he did five pages and it was OK. TB said he was basically a slug but he was clever, and we shouldn't over-alienate or underestimate."

Reuters quotes official who attended a briefing given in late 2010 by US State Department officials: "We were told (the impact of WikiLeaks revelations) was embarrassing but not damaging."

Peter Preston in the Observer on Paul Dacre's salary: "A mere newspaper editor, a wage slave with a green eyeshade, sees his salary soar 70% in a year to an eye-watering £2.8m. That's 16 times the prime minister's pay – and five times better than the BBC director general. Just imagine what the Daily Mail would make of such excess..."

Stephen Glover in the Independent on Richard Desmond: "It is the 59-year-old Mr Desmond, not the nearly 80-year-old Rupert Murdoch, who is the coming man in the British media. In comparison with him, Mr Murdoch is the Archangel Gabriel."

Roy Greenslade on his MediaGuardian blog about the latest NoW phone hacking revelations: "An NoW spokesman was quoted as saying:'This is a serious allegation that will form part of our internal investigation.' This response defines the adjective disingenuous. It has no credibility whatsoever. It suggests that News Int is utterly shocked by the revelation. Yet it follows years of undimmed scepticism within the journalistic community in the face of its rogue reporter defence."

Mirror spokesman after paper wins Naomi Campbell fees case at European Court: "This judgment should increase pressure on the coalition government to abolish the recovery of such fees from defendants and we look forward to that happening in the near future."

Robert Cottrell on The Browser: "The best piece of advice I ever got was from John Bulloch, of The Independent, when I was grousing about some miserable act of sub-editing. ‘Never, ever read the paper, my boy,’ he said. ‘You’ll be much happier that way.’ So I didn’t, and I was."

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