Friday 13 December 2013

Media Quotes of the Week: From Twitter already better than the BBC to last Post for Liverpool


Emily Bell in the Guardian: "Twitter is already a far more effective tool for reporting, discovery, dissemination and collaboration than anything the BBC will ever produce."

on Twitter: "In the beginning was the Word and the subs cut it."

John Kampfner in GQ: "At no point in my lifetime, and I wonder if at any point in our modern history, have we so coveted the idea of taking offence. We look for it everywhere, under every bed, in every tweet, on every comedy show. Getting upset has become a national pastime. It's the new human right. Anything that offends society's strict codes of taste and decency can land the blogger, the tweeter, the journalist or politician in trouble. Within hours, a mob conventional wisdom has formed, based in pious generalities, which requires instant apology and recantation."

Committe to Protect Journalists deputy director Robert Mahoney, on Huff Post: "The grilling by a House of Commons select committee of Guardiane editor Alan Rusbridger crystalized the problems of an independent press trying to serve the public interest in a country that lacks robust legal safeguards of press freedom."

Mick Hume on Spiked: "In the UK many will defend press freedom for what they deem the ethical, public-interest journalism of the Guardian or the BBC, but not for the ‘unethical’ tabloids. Indeed, the language of ethics has become a code for trying to purge the press of that which is not to the taste of those for whom ‘popular’ is a dirty word – we might call it a campaign of ‘ethical cleansing’."

Ian Burrell in the Independent: "Charging for news is nothing new.  But demanding paid subscriptions for popular news remains a radical concept  in the internet world. It’s still early  days but the success of Sun+ must  have surprised some people."

Jonathan Heawood, director of the Impress Project, in the Guardian: "A small group of journalists, lawyers and free speech campaigners are kickstarting this process. We have drafted a prospectus to show how it may be possible to build a regulator which is truly independent of newspaper owners and politicians. We don't have all the answers, but we have some ideas. And – unlike the people behind Ipso – we would like to talk about them."

BBC News director James Harding on complaints there was too much coverage of the death of Nelson Mandela, as reported by the Guardian: "Nobody needs a lecture on his importance but we are probably talking about the most important statesman, the most significant statesman, of the last 100 years, a man who defined freedom, justice, reconciliation, forgiveness. The importance of his life and marking his death seems extremely clear to us."



Editor Mark Thomas on Trinity Mirror's decision to close the Liverpool Post, as reported by HoldTheFrontPage: “It has been a privilege to edit the Liverpool Post for the last seven years. This is without doubt the saddest day of my career. I am very proud of all the journalists who have worked alongside me on the Liverpool Post. This is no reflection on them."

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, on the closure of the Liverpool Post: "It is a tragedy for the city and for the journalists that such an iconic title of such long standing has been closed down... It also sends alarms bells ringing for the consequences of the trend at Trinity Mirror and other newspaper groups to convert dailies to weekly production."

Steve Dyson on the Guardian's Media Blog: "Birmingham Post journalists themselves will certainly have one nervous eye on this week's news from Liverpool, the other looking for reassurance from their bosses."

No comments: