Media Quotes of the Week: From pandemic pressures pushing journalists to quit to Culture Secretary's eye-watering threat to reporter

Sara Guaglione on Digiday: "The effects of the pandemic on journalists are ongoing. People are continuing to quit their jobs, leave the industry or shift roles, citing burnout from the pressures of working under the shadow of a pandemic while already in a stressful career path. The pandemic seems to be pushing journalists who were already on the verge of leaving to the brink, and those that have left are not looking back."

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts journalism jobs in US will decline by 4.8% by 2030, after already shrinking from nearly 66,000 workers in 2000 to 52,000 in 2019.

Andrew Neil, asked on BBC's Question Time about his departure from GB News: "I had made it clear, it wouldn't be a British Fox News, and I think you could do something different without going anywhere near Fox. Fox deals in untruths, it deals with conspiracy theories, and it deals in fake news and that's not my kind of journalism...More and more differences emerged between myself and the other senior managers and the board of GB News. Rather than these differences narrowing, they got wider and wider and I felt it was best that if that’s the route they wanted to take then that’s up to them, it’s their money."

Andrew Neil on Twitter: "After weeks of talks with @GBNEWS, resulting in exit settlement, the channel then broke it by briefing Mail on Sunday with load of smears/lies then unilaterally cancelling exit deal. Leaving me free to do, say whatever I want + never again be on GBNews. Couldn’t be happier."

• Alan Rusbridger on Twitter: "The BBC should, IMHO, hire back @afneil asap. Whatever his politics, he is a true professional and understands the BBC rules perfectly well. The same, I suspect, is true of @jessbrammar."

Piers Morgan on Twitter on joining News UK's new national television station talkTV and writing a column for the Sun: "I’ve gone home. Great to be rejoining Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation after 28 years. The place I started my media career, with the boss who gave me my first big break. We’re going to have a lot of fun…."

• Rupert Murdoch on Piers Morgan: “Piers is the broadcaster every channel wants but is too afraid to hire. Piers is a brilliant presenter, a talented journalist and says what people are thinking and feeling.”

Mic Wright on Byline Times:  "The moment that Andrew Neil – a former sinister apprentice to the dark lord of News Corp during his time at The Sunday Times and Sky – announced his departure from GB News on Monday, Murdoch’s plan for a new right-wing news channel, which had been ‘scaled back’ in April, twitched to life. Murdoch has seen an opportunity to take the anti-woke, far-right slot that GB News has failed to dominate through lack of investment, paucity of talent, and technical ineptitude."

Will Hutton in the Observer: "Right-of-centre British newspapers have done an unparalleled job in attempting to move public opinion to the right, but as their circulation declines so their influence wanes. Without a politician of the campaigning zest of Boris Johnson, Tories concede, their chance of winning elections will fade. The imperative is to use the current conjuncture to follow the US and build a broadcast media as effective as the fading print media in cheerleading the Conservative cause. Public service broadcasting and, above all, broadcast regulators’ attachment to impartiality are in their crosshairs."

Journalist and trade unionist in Afghanistan interviewed by the International Federation of Journalists: "As a journalist it is hard to work under the Taliban because they don't respect journalists' rights, they see every journalist as an enemy or as working against them. They have violated the existing legislation, they have not set out any clear policy, they don't allow access to information and prevent news coverage each time they don't wish an issue to be reported on. I have worked mostly with international media, mainly from the UK and US and they want to punish journalists who have worked with US, UK and other western media. My life is at risk and every minute I fear they will try to find and arrest me or kill me.

"As a unionist I feel my life is even more in danger because I was protecting national and international journalists and media workers' rights and I was critical of the Taliban policy, fighting for press freedom and freedom of expression."

Jennifer Rankin in the Guardian: "EU governments have been urged by Brussels to take action to protect journalists, after an increase in physical and online attacks on members of the press. Issuing its first-ever recommendation on journalists’ safety, the European Commission called on EU governments to set up free contact points for media workers who face physical or online threats, in order to ensure a rapid response from police and prosecutors. It also wants to make sure journalists who become victims of crime have assured access to counselling, legal advice and shelters. According to the commission, 908 journalists and media workers were attacked in 23 EU member states in 2020, resulting in physical and mental injuries, as well as damage to property."

Hadley Freeman in the Guardian in her last column on the changing attitude to columnists:  "Ideological disagreements were just a normal part of life on the paper back then, and mixing only with those you agree with would have been seen by many journalists as embarrassingly partisan and unprofessional. I don’t know if that’s quite so true any more. I’ve tackled some highlycontroversial subjects in my time, from Israel to – most controversially – the ugliness of combat trousers, so I’m no stranger to heated debate. But where once people could argue with one another and then go out for a drink, now it feels as if people just argue. A difference of opinion becomes a seismic breaking of alliances, and certain subjects are verboten in social situation."

Our new Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries profiled by Press Gazette: "In 2013 Dorries threatened to nail a Sunday Mirror journalist’s testicles to the floor after he doorstepped her to ask about her daughter’s taxpayer-funded job. She tweeted: 'Ben Glaze of the Sunday Mirror has an interest in my three daughters which borders on decidedly creepy/ stalker-esque. Here is a message….'Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor… using your own front teeth. Do you get that?'”