Thursday 18 August 2016

Media Quotes of the Week: From are the BBC Olympics team in Rio journalists or cheerleaders? to why Companies House shouldn't restrict data



Simon Jenkins in the Guardian: "At 10 o’clock we were denied important news – of Anjem Choudary’s conviction, of swingeing tax fines and of possible 'special status' for Britain outside the EU. Instead we had to sit for an hour and a half, waiting for three minutes of BBC pandemonium as British cyclists yet again pedalled fast. We had to watch while the BBC aired pictures of its own commentary box punching the air and howling. These were not so much journalists as state cheerleaders."


Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, quoted by Press Gazette, after the magazine recorded average sales of 230,099 a fortnight – its highest circulation since 1986: “It’s amazing… 30 years ago we had a Conservative female Prime Minister, the Labour party was in a mess and we had a TV star who ended up as the US President – how times have changed.”


Donald Trump, pointing at the journalists covering his rally, as reported by the New York Times: "These people are the lowest form of life, I’m telling you. They are the lowest form of humanity.”

Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump on Twitter: "If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly and didn't put false meaning into the words I say, I would be beating Hillary by 20%."




Sir Philip Green objecting to being filmed by a Sky News camera crew: "That's going in the f****** sea."



William Turvill in City A.M.: "The owners of the Daily Telegraph have reiterated that their newspapers are not for sale after it emerged that two high-profile media figures have approached them about the company this year. Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the Evening Standard and now online-only Independent newspapers, is understood to have made an informal approach over the availability of Telegraph Media Group earlier this year."


The Guardian in a leader"Journalists do not deserve protection because they constitute a privileged group; they need it because they can show the world as it really is and allow the unheard to find a voice. There is a reason why people so often want to shut them up. Halting print runs, closing down websites, silencing radio stations and blacking out TV screens are all ways of concealing misdeeds, preventing scrutiny or simply blocking alternative viewpoints. But such actions also serve to remind us all why press freedom matters."


Robert Hutton ‏@RobDotHutton on Twitter: "The Guardian's "why aren't you paying for the thing we don't charge for?" ads get ever more passive aggressive."


From the Telegraph's obit on Morning Star editor Tony Chater: "The paper tried to prevent Express Newspapers launching the Daily Star. It received short shrift, the judge who heard the case declaring that 'only a moron in a hurry' would confuse the two."


Private Eye on the "dangerously regressive" proposal by Companies House to remove from its publicly accessible free database the records of all companies which have been dissolved more than six years. Presently theses records are accessible for 20 years: "The Eye has often relied on the story told by Companies House records of long-dissolved companies to dig out the truth. Using such records last year, we first revealed that BHS buyer Dominic Chappell had a history of business failures - companies dissolved between 1994 and 2005 that would not have been available in 2015 under the proposed new deletion regime."

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