Thursday 9 August 2018

Media Quotes of the Week: From I'm Mainstream Media and proud says Robert Peston to banning boozy lunches took the fun out of Fleet Street


Robert Peston @Peston on Twitter: "Pls give up trying to shame me by calling me MSM. It is pointless. I’ve worked for amazing MSM news organisations for decades. & some of you who use MSM as term of abuse wouldn’t recognize objective impartial journalism if it rolled over you in a monster truck. I am #MSMandProud"


Owen Joneson Twitter: "Periodic reminder that the British media, with some excellent exceptions, is absolute trash, which disproportionately attracts talentless people who use their ill-gotten platforms to bait Muslims, refugees, immigrants, benefit claimants, trans people and other minorities."


Will Bunch on philly.com: "The growing insanity of Trump’s rallies poses a threat to the free press, which is essential for making democracy happen. Showing some editorial restraint — and not airing unedited and unfiltered falsehoods and hate speech — would hardly make the media an enemy of the American people. In fact, that would be an act of tremendous love — for the truth."


Bret Stephens in the New York Times about receiving a death threat phone call: "Donald Trump’s more sophisticated defenders have long since mastered the art of pretending that the only thing that matters with his presidency is what it does, not what he says. But not all of the president’s defenders are quite as sophisticated. Some of them didn’t get the memo about taking Trump seriously but not literally. A few hear the phrase “enemy of the people” and are prepared to take the words to their logical conclusion. Is my caller one of them? I can’t say. But what should be clear is this: We are approaching a day when blood on the newsroom floor will be blood on the president’s hands."


Donald Trump at his rally in Pennsylvania, as reported by Huff Post, pointing at journalists: “These horrible, horrendous people back there.. [news media] can make anything bad, because they are the fake, fake disgusting news...What ever happened to the free press? What ever happened to honest reporting? They don’t report it. They only make up stories.”
  • Donald Trump @realDonaldTrump on Twitter: "The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE. I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!"

Pete Vernon in the Columbia Journalism Review: "Given Trump’s consistent media-bashing, it’s not surprising that members of his administration would refrain from criticizing those who take the same line as the president. But as Trump and his allies in the media demonstrate their ability to foment public vitriol toward the press, perhaps it’s worth considering the reaction if the target were not a professional class like journalists, but rather a racial minority, or a group of immigrants. The mob behavior on display at these rallies is, at times, downright frightening."


Photographer Ricardo Vilanova on returning to Syria to face two of the captured "ISIS Beatles" who held him and other journalists hostage, as reported by Quentin Sommerville for BBC News: "The first thing I thought when I saw them was Gaddafi, or Saddam… Who were not able to face death .. they were exactly the same, they were able to torture and murder but when the moment arrived they handed themselves in order to survive. I think that´s despicable. I hope they spend the rest of their life in prison because dying is easy but spending the rest of your life in prison, especially in the same conditions they kept us hostage"


Mr Justice Mann quoted in The Times [£] on his Cliff Richard vs BBC privacy judgment: “It has been suggested that my judgment is remarkable in imposing a new blanket restraint on the reporting of the subject of a criminal investigations. That is an erroneous reading of my judgment. My judgment acknowledges that the reasonable expectation of privacy in the face of an investigation is a presumption or starting point that can give way to countervailing factors; the safety of the public is one example. The desirability of flushing out potential witnesses or more potential complainants is another, as the judgment itself acknowledges.”

Old Bell:Fleet Street
Colin Dunne in Press Gazette bemoaning the end of the pub lunch culture in Fleet Street: "It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. In between swifties and quickies and long lunches and early evenings, out of all this emerged some marvelous copy. The tabloids were full of fun and merriment and the readers loved them. Now they are full of spite and anger. That’s what egg-and-cress sandwiches do to a man."

[£]=paywall

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