Friday 22 July 2011

Quotes of the Week: From humbling to Chipping


Rupert Murdoch to the Parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee hearing into phone hacking:
"This is the most humble day of my life."

Daily Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre, speaking to a parliamentary committtee looking at defamation law, on the News of the World: "I personally would not have it in the house but I would die in a ditch to defend its right to publish."

Polly Toynbee in the Guardian:
"Pick up the tabloids any day and read behind the prurience the number of people bullied, tricked, bribed, blackmailed, shouted at through letterboxes. Everyone has always known it. Readers are complicit – though not to blame. Once stories are out there, everyone wants to know what others know. But asked in polls, people want less of this polluting cruelty and intrusion. A better press on the horizon? Dream on – and buy good papers to keep them alive."

Stephen Glover in the Independent: "By the way, I should apologise to the Guardian for suggesting in November 2009 that it was exaggerating the phone-hacking affair. It was right and I was wrong."

The Sunday Times in a leader: "We can only hope that out of this frenzy a more responsible press will emerge. Certain things will not change, however: the media and politicians will always have a close relationship of mutual interest and hostility. It’s not perfect but, like democracy, nobody has come up with a better system."

ADWEEK on Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger: "He looks more like Harry Potter's lonely uncle than the kind of man capable of bringing down Rupert Murdoch."

Simon Jenkins in the Guardian: "It is unsurprising that Murdoch's fiercest critics should also be his fiercest competitors, notably the Guardian and the BBC."

Patrick Wintour, in the Guardian, on the panel for the Leveson inquiry into the conduct of the media: "Cameron did not appoint a tabloid journalist, even though many of the issues apply to the tabloids."

Labour leader and Doncaster North MP Ed Miliband on Twitter about the strike at South Yorkshire Newspapers, publisher of the Doncaster Free Press and South Yorkshire Times: "Hope the issues are resolved soon. I’ve always appreciated what Free Press and SYT do – their campaigns and stories are vital."

Keith Ruddle, of the
Chipping Norton News editorial team, offers Rebekah Brooks a job on the community paper via the Guardian's letters page: "If Rebekah joins the News, she will see it is about real communication of news and views for the community and by the community. No hacking, no blagging – only honest amateur sleuthing, as polite and as balanced as possible – we on the editorial team don't want bricks through our windows. Oh and yes, please note the job of supreme editor is not up for grabs."

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