Friday 16 December 2011

Media Quotes of the Week: From the Guardian Milly Dowler story row to baby polar bears


Guardian's Nick Davies on Sky News: “To claim that it is the deletion element of that story which made all the difference is a grotesque distortion. There was always the risk that if we came out with the new evidence that mischief-makers would get hold of it and try to make more of it than should be made.”

Stephen Glover in the Independent: "Long experience has taught me that the Guardian does not like admitting it has got things wrong, so I am not at all surprised by the way it has handled a correction to what may well be the most explosive and influential story it has ever published."

Sun managing editor Richard Caseby to the Joint Committee on Privacy Injunctions: "It is now clear that Alan Rusbridger has effectively sexed up his investigation into phone hacking and the wider issue of wrongdoing in the media.”

Ex-NoW political editor David Wooding on Twitter: "Nick Davies pleads that only one element of his story was wrong. Yes, Nick, the main element of it."

Tom Latchem, a former News of the World reporter, on Sky News "This allegation [that reporters deleted the voicemails] really made me feel sick. I thought, 'Why am I working for a company that would fund the hacking of a mobile and deletion of messages adding to the pain of an already suffering family?' To find out this isn’t true makes me feel bad.’"

Unemployed Hack on his blog: "We can’t cling to this shred of information to defend what was still widespread hacking to get stories to make money for Murdoch. We can’t defend the indefensible. We can though recognise that the reasons for closing the News of the World weren’t moral outrage by its owners, fears of a permanent ad revenue loss, or a drop in readership following the Guardian investigation – Murdoch’s priority back then was his BSkyB bid and that was his reason for closure, not fearing an investigation by a broadsheet."

Sky News' award winning Alex Crawford in the Guardian: "My colleagues are keen to ensure I don't think I'm a god. They tell me: 'You're just an average reporter that got lucky'."

Yorkshire journalist Alan Berry, retiring after 65 years, quoted by HoldtheFrontPage: “When I look at the quality of news coverage we get now I think it’s awful. There are so few reporters now and so many stories are missed. We covered all the big stories back then, newspapers were where everyone got information, not like today. When I first started at the Doncaster Chronicle in 1945 there were three weekly papers and two evenings in the town, all with their own staff."

George Monbiot in the Guardian: "The men who own the corporate press are fighting a class war, seeking, even now, to defend the 1% to which they belong against its challengers. But because they control much of the conversation, we seldom see it in these terms. Our press re-frames major issues so effectively, it often recruits its readers to mobilise against their own interests."

Press Complaints Commission chairman Lord Hunt tells Exaro of his proposals to regulate blogs and online publications: “At the moment, it is like the Wild West out there. We need to appoint a sheriff.”

BBC director-general Mark Thompson on the Frozen Planet baby polar bears deception row: “I do really rather wonder whether this is really about polar bears or about Lord Leveson."

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