Thursday 2 July 2020

Media Quotes of the Week: From The Times they are a broadcastin' to we are ruled by a 'gobocracy' - a Government of ex-newspaper columnists



The Times [£] in a leader: "Times Radio is not merely a megaphone for the famous and powerful. It is an operation with the ability to conduct expert analysis, and pose hard questions, because of the resources it draws on from the news rooms of The Times and The Sunday Times. In the digital age, the division between print and broadcasting has long broken down. Readers and listeners are the same audience, and anyone, via blogs or podcasts, can address them. There is a space in this multiplicity of media for voices that are objective and informed, to counter current fashions for rumour or propaganda."


Roger Mosey, former head of BBC TV News and director of BBC Sport on the launch of Times Radio, on Twitter: "It’s been a decent start by @timesradio. The Mir/Abell combination works. The main thing to applaud is an investment in intelligent speech radio, which adds to the range of voices alongside the BBC and LBC."


John Crace in the Guardian: "Times Radio was looking for a big name to kick off the first show of its first day broadcasting, and interviews don’t come much bigger than the prime minister. And Boris Johnson was keen to drop a gentle reminder that Radio 4’s Today still was not forgiven for its lese-majesty, which was why he had not appeared on the programme for nearly two years. So shortly after eight in the morning Boris made his return to the first news organisation to have sacked him for lying."


Bill Grueskin in the Columbia Journalism Review on White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany: "When she pivots from reporters’ questions to go off on unrelated diatribes, she is seeking to undermine the credibility not just of individual journalists or outlets, but of journalism itself. When confronted with a tweet or quote that might work to Trump’s disadvantage, she tries to undermine the press rather than to address the substance of the story. That is why she comes armed to briefings with multiple examples of press failure—some valid, some fictitious—and draws White House reporters into a noxious tit for tat."


Lynda Moyo, head of what's on at Reach, on Behind Local News on Medium: "Anyone who knows me will also know I’m proud of my afro hair and its chameleon-like tendencies. Seeing me walk through the Manchester Evening News office with waist length jumbo box braids is nothing out of the ordinary. Yet I went out of my way to straighten my hair for that interview because I genuinely believed it could be the difference between 'you’ve got the job' and 'sorry you’re not what we’re looking for at this time.' That feeling stems from a lifetime of feeling like you don’t fit in, like you’re not quite good enough."


The Times [£] reports: "Facebook and Twitter were in turmoil yesterday as leading British and American businesses pulled advertising from their social networks, saying that the time had come for the companies to clean up hate speech and fake news. Unilever, the £120 billion British consumer goods group behind Hellmann’s mayonnaise, suspended US advertising on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter until the end of the year at least. Verizon, the £182 billion US mobile network provider, pulled adverts on Facebook and Instagram until an “acceptable solution” was found for policing harmful content."








Google's Brad Bender in a statement on the google blog: "A vibrant news industry matters—perhaps now more than ever, as people look for information they can count on in the midst of a global pandemic and growing concerns about racial injustice around the world. But these events are happening at a time when the news industry is also being challenged financially. We care deeply about providing access to information and supporting the publishers who report on these important topics. Today, we are announcing a licensing program to pay publishers for high-quality content for a new news experience launching later this year."

Rachel Sassoon Beer

Ann Treneman in The Times [£]: "Good news in my quest to honour Rachel Beer, the first female editor of a national newspaper in Britain who was at the helm of both The Sunday Times and The Observer during the 1890s. I discovered her story years ago when I wrote a book on graves of exceptional people. She lies in Tunbridge Wells, her headstone revealing only her date of death (April 29, 1927) and that she was the daughter of David Sassoon. Well now, with the help of members of the Sassoon family and money from both papers, there is a splendid white marble marker that notes her achievement on her newly renovated grave. I visited last week and felt a sense of pride. I know it is a relatively small thing but it is there for ever now."


Marina Hyde on Richard Desmond in the Guardian: "I see Desmond’s currently a property developer. Then again: he owns a massive newspaper-printing complex. What else are you going to do with it in this day and age? You know the drill for these pivot-to-luxury-flats redevelopments. Quick nod to the heritage in the form of: a coffee shop where a cappuccino costs £4 and people can read free newspapers via gazillionaire social media networks; a blow-dry bar (“The Head-Line”); a gym (“The Print Run”); and a fauxthentic pub called Ye Olde Livere Failyure. Before you take any satisfaction from this, do please remember that we have only gone and elected a journalist to run the entire country."


Nick Cohen in the Observer"As Boris Johnson is leading Britain’s first government of pundits, 'a gobocracy', if you like, it is worth repeating Humbert Wolfe’s scathing poem on the press: 'You cannot hope to bribe or twist,/ thank God! the British journalist./ But, seeing what the man will do/ unbribed, there’s no occasion to.' In a gobocracy, there’s no need to become too conspiratorial about why a prime minister betrays his country. Put a Telegraph columnist in charge, throw in Michael Gove from the Times and Dominic Cummings from Vote Leave’s propaganda arm, and their bottomless cynicism and instinctive charlatanism will bring ruin with or without foreign assistance."

[£]=paywall 

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