Media Quotes of the Week: Downing Street in Trumpian attack on Guardian and Mirror to victorious NHS campaigner thanks journalists

Downing Street spokesman, quoted by the Observer: "Yesterday [Friday] the Mirror and Guardian wrote inaccurate stories about Mr Cummings. Today [Saturday] they are writing more inaccurate stories including claims that Mr Cummings returned to Durham after returning to work in Downing Street on 14 April. We will not waste our time answering a stream of false allegations about Mr Cummings from campaigning newspapers.”

Ian Murray, executive director of the Society of Editors, in a statement: “No administration that believes in a free media – and this government has repeatedly stood by that assertion – can then decide which media it will respond to and which not...At a time when the UK government is heading the Global Campaign for Media Freedom this is hardly a shining example to set...We will be asking Number 10 to once again give assurances that all mainstream media will be treated equally, and that open government will survive even during this time of crisis.”

Reporters Sans Frontiers UK bureau director Rebecca Vincent in a statement: "We are alarmed by the UK government’s dismissal of serious public interest reporting as ‘false’ and coming from ‘campaigning newspapers’. These Trumpian tactics are only serving to fuel hostility and public distrust in media. This worrying trend is certainly not in keeping with the government’s stated commitment to champion global media freedom - and must be immediately reversed before the UK’s press freedom climate is further eroded."

• Steve Richards on Twitter: "Astonishingly naive response from Number 10...copying Trump.. but in a way that makes Trump seem subtle.."
• Ian Wylie on Twitter: "I was a member of the Westminster Parliamentary Press Lobby / Press Gallery for 30 years. The No 10 statement on Dominic Cummings followed by an orchestrated campaign of support from ministers is one of the most shameful things I have ever seen from any government."

"Friends of Mr Cummings suggested he would be going nowhere. One told the PA news agency: 'He isn't remotely bothered by this story, it's more fake news from the Guardian. There is zero chance of him resigning'."

Andrew Griffith MP on Twitter, as reported by the Littlehampton Gazette, after Dominic Cummings rose garden press conference: "Calm, fulsome and reasonable explanation given by DC just now. Sunlight shone on the situation. Media to now crawl back under rocks.."

Hugo Rifkind in The Times [£]: "Often, his enemies cast him as one of those mystical, wibbly, blue sky-thinking gurus who political leaders always seem to have these days. That, though, is a category error. There is nothing mystical or wibbly about Cummings. He has a clear and consistent political stance, which is that everybody else is an idiot. In particular, he likes to rail against what he perceives as a suffocating media-political conventional wisdom that is wrong about virtually everything. Wrong about the EU, wrong about education, wrong about the civil service, wrong about the role of parliament. Wrong that somebody in the midst of a scandal like this ought to explain themselves, just because some newspaper asks some questions."

Amy Fenton, Newsquest's chief reporter in South Cumbria, on threats which have forced her to move to a secret location with police protection: "While it isn’t the first time this has happened to me I’m determined that it will be last, by ensuring each and every one of these people faces the full force of the law. Not only have they threatened to 'throat punch' me, slit my throat, and set me on fire, but they have involved the welfare of my little girl and that is beyond acceptable. As a journalist I won’t tolerate anyone threatening me but as a mum I won’t tolerate anyone putting my daughter’s life at risk."

BBC reprimand for Emily Maitlis intro on Newsnight Dominic Cummings report: "While we believe the programme contained fair, reasonable and rigorous journalism, we feel that we should have done more to make clear the introduction was a summary of the questions we would examine, with all the accompanying evidence, in the rest of the programme. As it was, we believe the introduction we broadcast did not meet our standards of due impartiality."

• Paul Siegert, NUJ national broadcasting organiser, in a statement: "NUJ members across the corporation are outraged at the treatment of a respected colleague and a key face of the BBC. It is wholly unacceptable for journalists to be pilloried on social media, and let down by their employer, for doing their jobs whilst scrutinising decision-making and holding the government to account."

Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times [£] praises the BBC: "Covid-19 has been the remaking of it, reminding us first and foremost that it can, on occasion, bring the nation together in something other than seething irritation and that — never mind the market — a centrally funded, independent news network has its benefits...By and large, the news programmes, on radio at least, have been calm, measured, balanced and informative — especially Sarah Montague on World at One and Evan Davis on PM."

International Federation of Journalists deputy general secretary Jeremy Dear, interviewed on the IFJ website: "At the moment Google and Facebook are trying to portray themselves as saints and saviours by handing out grants to selected media. We don’t want the crumbs from their table. We want them to pay their fair share. The big six US tech firms have been accused of “aggressively avoiding” $100bn (£75bn) of global tax over the past decade. That must stop! We believe that a global fund, managed by representative media and journalists’ organisations, with a remit to promote public interest media can create a sustainable future for media and guarantee citizens their rights to an independent pluralistic media."

Liam Kelly in The Sunday Times [£]: "The retreat of BuzzFeed News, which started as an aggregator of viral content but became a respected outlet catering for younger readers, illustrates the depth of the crisis the pandemic has sparked among digital media upstarts once touted as the future of journalism. They have succumbed to issues older titles have faced for years far more quickly than many of their print rivals, and in the process raised questions over the future of free mass news online."

Press Gazette reports: "UK national newspapers no longer have to make their print circulations public through auditors ABC, which means we may never get the full picture of the impact of coronavirus on newspaper sales. News UK, publisher of the Sun and Times titles, has opted to make its circulation figures private – only agencies who have signed a confidentiality agreement can see them."

News UK chief operating officer David Dinsmore in a statement: “News UK is a multi-platform business with brands that reach more people than ever before via mobile, web, apps, video, radio stations and podcasts, alongside print. While print remains a vitally important method of distributing our editorial to readers and meeting our advertisers’ needs, it is logical that the way we measure our audiences reflects the way the world works today.”

UN investigator Agnès Callamard, quoted in the Guardian, has predicted Saudi Arabia will eventually release the killers of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi after they were said to have been forgiven by his sons: “All of us who over the last 20 months have reported on the gruesome execution of Jamal Khashoggi and absence of accountability for his killing expected this. The Saudi authorities are playing out what they hope will be the final act in their well-rehearsed parody of justice in front of an international community far too ready to be deceived.”

Hassan Akkad, whose campaign for migrant NHS workers to be exempt from a health surcharge led to the Government u-turn on the issue, on Twitter: "Thanks to you, the unions, the campaigners and the journalists who helped us get our message across, like Piers Morgan and James O'Brien, to name a few...Britain is great because of you."

[£] =paywall