Media Quotes of the Week: From media reaps angry backlash over Caroline Flack coverage to save the BBC we need more journalists not less

Call for Caroline's Law petition on 38 degrees , which has gained more than 770,000 signatures: "To consider a law that would make it a criminal offence, not dissimilar to Corporate Manslaughter, for the British Media to knowingly and relentlessly bully a person, whether they be in the public eye or not, up to the point that they take their own life."

Jim Waterson on Twitter: "There’s a massive public backlash against tabloids over their coverage of Caroline Flack. There’s also a massive surge in traffic from the public to the same tabloid sites from people wanting to read about Caroline Flack’s death."

Laura Whitmore on her BBC Radio 5 live show about Caroline Flack: “I’ve seen journalists and Twitter warriors talk of this tragedy and they themselves twisted what the truth is … Your words affect people. To paparazzi and tabloids looking for a cheap sell, to trolls hiding behind a keyboard, enough.”

Mark Austin on Twitter: "So a celebrity taking her own life is attributed in part to the poison on social media; and yet that very possibility turns this platform into even more of a vitriolic cesspit."

Rachel Ellen Pugh on Twitter: "Wish people see the amount of hatred and vile comments journalists get on a daily basis just for doing our jobs. If you’re preaching mental health and branding all journos ‘scum’ in the same post, you’re perpetuating the exact problem you’re supposedly against."

Julian Borger on Twitter on Daily Mail's investigation into PM's holiday: "This shows at least one democratic norm still functioning in UK, which is dying in the US. A traditional Tory paper investigating the PM, because it is a scandal, and a good story, and because the Daily Mail will be around long after Johnson has left the stage."

Citizen journalist Chen Qiushi, detained by the Chinese authorities for reporting on the coronavirus in Wuhan, quoted by The Times [£]: “It’s my duty to be a citizen journalist. What sort of a journalist are you if you don’t dare rush to the front line in a disaster?”

Amal Clooney's Report on the Use of Targeted Sanctions to Protect Journalists: "Media freedom has been in decline for a decade, through systemic censorship as well as relentless attacks on journalists ranging from online harassment to arbitrary detention and extra-judicial killings. Many governments are refusing to hold perpetrators of such attacks to account, and in many places the governments are the perpetrators. International sanctions targeting individuals responsible for the abuses can highlight their misconduct, limit their impact and act as a deterrent to future misdeeds. Such sanctions are indeed, in the current global political climate, often the only way to hold those responsible to account."

Nick Cohen in the Observer: "If you are a judge, journalist, civil servant, Conservative MP or British citizen who needs the protection of the law, you should get ready for what is coming. If you challenge the lovelorn [Boris] Johnson, he will hate you and do all he can to destroy you."

Mark Casci on Twitter on Sunday Times report BBC licence is to go: "The world needs more journalists, not less. On a weekend where BBC reporters on local radio will be providing Storm Dennis updates that will impact thousands of lives, this will be evident. It’s not a fatted cow, it’s an institution that provides incredible value for money."

Alan Rusbridger on Twitter: "An epidemic of fake news is a great moment to scrap the one publicly-held and universally available source of broadly reliable and trusted news. Unless confusion about what’s true is the end you seek."

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