Media Quotes of the Week: What 'journalist-haters' don't understand, why 'fake news' is an oxymoron for morons and when rock star interviews go bad

Amol Rajan on the BBC News website: "The single biggest and most frequent mistake made by those currently attacking journalists as enemies of the people is the tendency to react emotionally to some provocation by a high-profile journalist by impugning the whole trade. It's as if, in the minds of these journalist-haters, one famous anchor is by default an ambassador for the millions of people who work in the trade around the world...Most people in journalism - though obviously not all - are decent, civilised, public-spirited people who enjoy elegant sentences, could get paid better elsewhere, and are in it more to scratch an itch for information than adulation."

Among the top entries in the Buzzsaw 2020 'hall of shame' for horrible phrases and jargon are these two beauties:‘

Fake news: Judge’s comment: “An oxymoron of such heft that only a moron could coin it. Unfortunately it has caught on.”

Mainstream media:  Judge’s comment: “A tedious blamefest, thinly disguising a lack of ability to debate properly.”

Ian Burrell in the i: "It’s clear that many in the UK media have been taken aback by the strength of reaction in Britain to a story originating in Minneapolis...There are powerful voices such as Gary Younge, the BBC’s Clive Myrie and the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush, and rising stars such as Nadine White of HuffPost UK. But there’s a scarcity of non-white faces in the top tiers of British newspapers."

Will Hutton on Twitter: "We must keep saying this, and repeating this. The attempt by the British government in the middle of this pandemic to discredit, ostracise and delegitimise C4News, Newsnight and Good Morning Britain by refusing interviews is a democratic and civic outrage. We are all reduced."

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, calling in a statement for political leaders to stamp out escalating hostility to journalists: "When the US president decries journalists as enemies of the people, when he launches vitriolic attacks on the 'lamestream' media, when he talks of journalists as being part of a conspiracy against the public to disseminate fake news – this pollutes political and public discourse and fans the flames of hatred. We’re seeing the same pattern of polarisation here, particularly on social media where bullying and intimidation of journalists is commonplace, with particular vitriol directed against women and journalists of colour. Words have consequences. Intemperate and polarised rhetoric on social media has real-life results."

JPIMedia chief executive David King on plans to close 11 newspaper offices, as quoted by HoldTheFrontPage: “As part of the overall JPIMedia property strategy launched last year, we were already pursuing a modest agile working approach in many parts of the business. The lockdown has shown us that remote working could be beneficial in many more areas of our business.”

Emily Bell on Twitter: "New BBC DG Tim Davie (a former deputy chair of his local Conservative party) is seen as a ‘safe’ choice. Whilst Davie has the support of the staff, his lack of editorial credentials make his appointment imo a very high risk choice. The BBC’s biggest vulnerability is editorial."

Kent church advert for a journalist, via the Guardian: "St Margaret’s Church are looking to recruit a fulltime Community Journalist because for thousands of years, it is story telling which has kept communities together. Now, more than ever before we need someone like you to tell our stories so that we might stay together even when physically we are apart."

Tribute to ex-Birmingham Mail journalist David on Birmingham Live: "David operated from two offices. During the first part of the morning, he worked in the Mail’s then base in Weaman Street in the city centre. But from 10.31am most days, the timing being a throwback to old licensing hours, he moved to his “other office”, the Old Joint Stock pub opposite the Cathedral. That was where a constant stream of councillors and contacts alike arrived to talk with him, offer tip-offs and generally chew the fat, sometimes queuing for their turn."

Mark Beaumont on the NME: "It was as Mark E Smith’s teeth closed in around my throat, lying on the floor of Filthy McNasty’s pub where he’d just thrown me, that I began to think that music journalism wasn’t all going to be MDMA cocktails by the Sunset Marquis pool with a jovial Keith Richards. Heaven knows Smith had form – a friend would often recall the time he sat down to interview Smith only to have the Fall singer immediately try to stub his cigarette out on said writer’s eye – but I never conceived he’d have any sort of problem with little old well-meaning me."