Thursday 4 July 2019

Media Quotes of the Week: From outrage as Trump jokes with Putin about getting rid of journalists to please don't scan our magazines - buy them!




Bloomberg White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs  @JenniferJJacobs on Twitter at the Osaka Summit: "Trump also bonded with Putin over a scorn for journalists. 'Get rid of them. Fake news is a great term, isn't it? You don’t have this problem in Russia, but we do.' 'We also have,' Putin answered, in English. 'It’s the same.' They shared a chuckle."

Brian Klaas @brianklaas on Twitter: "This is disgusting. Putin’s regime has murdered many, many journalists. And the President of the United States is joking about abusing the press with Russia’s despot, who likely ordered some of those killings."

Andrew Neil @afneil on Twitter: "Trump sitting with Putin calls journalists he doesn’t agree with ‘fake news’. You don’t have that problem, he tells Putin. He’s right. Journalists who cross Putin are killed or disappeared or jailed. Disgraceful statement by a US President."

Margaret Sullivan in the Washington Post: "Trump is joking with a foreign adversary about two of the most basic elements of American democracy: voting integrity and the role of free press. And he has the gall to accuse the press of treason? Those who call themselves Americans should be disgusted by what Trump did in Osaka."



The Labour Party in a statement, reported by ITV News: "These Times stories are a series of false, fabricated and absurd allegations hiding behind anonymous sources with a transparently political agenda. For any senior civil servant to falsely claim the leader of the opposition is ill, frail or forgetful, is a disgrace and a clear political intervention. In a democracy, the people decide who is prime minister."


Michael Crick in the Sunday Times [£] on similarities between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn: "Where most politicians are hugely dependent on the mainstream media and would be lost without it, Corbyn managed to become Labour leader, and stay there, without it. Johnson, until recently, had been doing his best to avoid press conferences and broadcast interviews. Yet both men have been professional journalists. Like Winston Churchill before him, Johnson is one of the highest-paid columnists of his age. Corbyn’s career as a journalist was rather more modest. He began adult life on the Newport and Market Drayton Advertiser in Shropshire, covering weddings and funerals — 20 years or so before Johnson became a trainee reporter on the Wolverhampton Express & Star."




Ex-Telegraph owner Lord Conrad Black on Max Hastings and Boris Johnson in the Spectator"Boris’s peccadilloes were more absurd, complicated and over-publicised than the shambles of the personal lives of other journalists. But his editorial opinions were sensible and consistent. His schtick grew tiresome, like an over-familiar vaudeville act, but he was at all times a person of goodwill and his foibles were deployed to the benefit of the enterprise. He had his lapses, but he was capable, successful and reliable when it counted, and he is, as he appears, a pleasant man. Max is an ill-tempered snob with a short attention span. He has his talents, but it pains me to report that when seriously tested, he was a coward and a flake. I think Boris will be fine."


Marina Hyde in the Guardian"Why are we getting journalists to run anything? What’s the rationale – that now they’ve torched their own industry, they should be allowed a go on the country? If the past couple of decades have shown us anything, it’s that journalists shouldn’t really have been in charge of even the journalism business. It is far from a coincidence that two of the leading architects of Brexit – Michael Gove and Johnson – were both journalists. Is it in any way surprising to find that the UK is very drunk and has already missed two deadlines?"



The Times [£] in a leader on the Government white paper on internet harm: "As things stand, all media outlets with space for user comments could be considered platforms under the proposals. That could include sites like that of The Times, which may find itself under pressure to quieten or kill the often lively debates that take place under articles online. The government says that it will not regulate where press regulation is already in place. But it must be clearer about how it will fulfil such a promise given the wording of the white paper."


Q magazine editor Ted Kessler @TedKessler1 on Twitter: "I politely implore the @florencemachine fanclubs to take down the @QMagazine cover story. Posting it online the day it’s in the shops will put us out business, halting this kind of twelve page feature on your favourite artist. Everyone deserves paying for their work."

Empire magazine editor-in-chief Terri White @Terri_White on Twitter: "We have people scanning in massive chunks of @empiremagazine every month to share in fan communities. The *real* service of fans is in allowing magazines like @empiremagazine and @QMagazine to continue to exist."More
Private Eye @PrivateEyeNews on Twitter: "This is just as true of Private Eye. Encouraging your followers to buy a copy and help fund the sort of journalism we do (and pay cartoonists!) is great; photographing whole chunks and giving them away for free when we've only just gone on sale really isn't."

 [£] =paywall

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