Media Quotes of the Week: From Telegraph's Boris splash is bad news for independent journalism to why interviewing Van Morrison isn't an easy gig

Alan Rusbridger on Twitter: "The first rule of journalism is that it stands independent of power. So a front page like this is a(nother) sad day for the Telegraph - but also sends an unhappy message about what journalism is actually for..."

Tim Walker, the former Telegraph journalists who is the Liberal Democrats candidate for Canterbury and Whitstable, quoted by KentOnline: “A lot of the main architects of Brexit are fellow journalists and I know them only too well. Leaving the EU was always a pipe dream that they hadn't a clue how to implement."

Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times [£]: "The prospective sale of The Daily Telegraph has attracted unexpected interest from America. Steve Bannon, the mastermind of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, hopes to assemble a consortium to turn the newspaper into the global voice of Trumpian populism. It’s one of the great untapped properties,” said Bannon, who co-founded Breitbart News, the US platform that has been accused of encouraging racism and white supremacy."

Jane Martinson in the Guardian: "We have grown used to newspapers claiming to have no sway over politicians but we are moving fast into an age when far bigger and more powerful companies are allowing even more underhand methods to influence public opinion. The Telegraph may have become the Daily Boris, and the television broadcasters may tie themselves in knots over the next six weeks trying to organise political debates but, on Facebook, political parties can send messages straight to each voter’s newsfeed, without anyone shouting about bias or asking them tricky questions. And that power is worth more than its weight in gold."

BBC director-general Lord Hall of Birkenhead seeking to expand the partnership scheme with the local press to cover courts, as quoted in The Times [£]: “It’s never been more important to invest in local journalism. The 150 reporters we have funded through the local news partnerships have made a real difference to local communities, giving people the information they need to hold those in power to account. Now it’s time to go further. I want businesses and other institutions to join with us so we can get even more reporters into local communities and give people the local journalism they deserve.”

Rod Liddle on the Spectator Blog: "I’m not on Twitter so haven’t seen any of the fury and outrage over my piece in this week’s Spectator. But I have been told that there was some. Ripped, as ever, out of context. There was no hate speech or Islamophobia whatsoever in my piece. None was meant, none intended and none should be taken. It was a very light-hearted series of suggestions about when to hold an election, based upon the silly dispute over the proposed dates for the election. It was patently a joke. I do not really think that students should be drugged with horse tranquilisers and skunk, or sent to a rave on an election day. Nor do I really think that the vote should be held on a day when Muslim people can’t vote."

NOTE FROM FRASER NELSON: "If one of our columnists seriously suggested that Muslims and students should be prevented from voting, then of course I would denounce it. It would be a disgusting thing to say. But Rod Liddle wasn’t doing that. He was satirising the wrangle over the two election dates by making deliberately absurd suggestions. At the Spectator, we have writers who disagree passionately with each other: they often make jokes. But this one was too easily misrepresented and should not have been published in the form that it was."

Gary Younge on leaving the Guardian to join the University of Manchester as a professor: “The Guardian was my first full time job, and I worked there for 26 years - it’s been a fantastic experience. Journalism, for me, has always been a process of enquiry and sharing whatever insights I've gathered in an accessible and informative way - that's precisely what I hope to achieve as a professor at The University of Manchester, and why I'm excited to be joining the sociology department."

International  Federation of Journalists president Youness Mjahed launching a campaign against impunity for crimes against journalists: "Today we call on all our affiliates across the world to join our global campaign to express their strong rejection of the levelofimpunity that leaves many victims' families powerless and many colleagues afraid of telling the truth. Fighting impunity for crimes against journalists is a necessity for all of us, beyond the media circle. There is no free press if those who order or commit killings remain comfortably safe forcing media to hide the truth and terrorising those who take risks to reveal it."

Van Morrison interviewed by Laura Barton in the Guardian resists any attempt to talk in depth about his music: “I sing and I write songs and I do gigs. So to me that’s not interesting. You’re trying to make it very, very interesting and something it’s not. Playing gigs is very practical. It’s very repetitive. And it’s no big deal. I’ve been doing it all my life.”

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