Thursday 11 November 2021

Media Quotes of the Week: Sleaze-busting scoops shame Government to Prince Harry says support honest journalists not 'pirates with press cards'



Dominic Ponsford on Press Gazette: "As Boris Johnson’s government, and Parliament itself, are engulfed in yet more sleaze scandals it is worth noting how many entries in this year’s British Journalism Awards involved exposing allegations of corruption and incompetence...No fewer than four of the eight nominations for the prestigious Scoop of the Year prize this year focused on allegations of UK government corruption, sleaze and incompetence. They were:

Alan Rusbridger on Twitter: 
"Great reporting by @thesundaytimes & @openDemocracy shows beyond doubt that the going rate for a peerage - ie to make laws for the rest of us - is £3m. Is Johnson really going to press on and handpick who regulates our media as well? Looks like it. Sleazy does it."


David Yelland on Twitter:
 "It was the Daily Mail wot did it for Paterson, not the PM...Geordie Greig take a bow, Daily Mail’s six pages on Owen Paterson corruption scandal is superb, two spreads, two columns, a leader; skewers Whittingdale too, a man who attacks BBC to please press backers."


Adam Boulton, who is leaving Sky News after 33 years, on the rise of opinion-led news in television, 
in The Times [£]“I have no reason to think that’s the direction we [at Sky] want to go. However, it irritates me. To me the hard work, where we expend blood and tears — and there really is blood sometimes: Mick Deane [the cameraman and journalist] was killed [in Egypt in 2015] — is news-gathering in the field. It’s much easier to sit in the studio, let other people gather the news and then bloviate about it.”


BBC News reports: "A report by the Survivors Against Terror group suggested new rules for journalists reporting attacks. They include an agreement not to contact the bereaved and seriously injured directly for at least the first 48 hours after an incident. It is also suggested that the use of pictures of those killed or injured without permission stops and journalists gathering outside victims' homes is prohibited."


Matthew Parris in The Times [£]: "
In politics and journalism, friendship is more corrupting than money."


Jamie Nimmo in the Sunday Times [£]:
"A decision to privatise Channel 4 is facing delays after the new culture secretary Nadine Dorries was overwhelmed by opposition to a sale of The Great British Bake Off broadcaster. Dorries was due to respond this month to submissions made in relation to plans to offload Channel 4, which is state-owned but self-funded through advertising. However, after a flood of opposition, her response is now not expected until next month or January, delaying any sale. The government is understood to have received 60,000 submissions."


Elaine McCarthyin a letter to the Observer: "As a long-term resident of Harlow, I think a big barrier to cohesion in this sprawling town (“Revealed: the towns at risk from far-right extremism”, News) is the absence of a proper local newspaper, the sort of newspaper that includes obituaries, club news and civil announcements. The online offering of local news lacks the opportunity of lucky finds. So if a resident in one part of the town has no knowledge of the happenings in another, apathy, it seems, is all too easy."


Prince Harry in a virtual discussion on “The Internet Lie Machine” organised by Wired magazine:
“I really feel we have to invest in and support professional, honest journalists who respect and uphold the values of journalism, not the pirates with press cards who have hijacked the most powerful industry in the world. I would love to see a movement to expose the unethical, the immoral and dishonest amongst them.”

[£]=paywall

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