Media Quotes of the Week: Mail wins daily and Sunday circulation war in 'profound cultural shift' to why can't all newspaper readers be like this?

Dominic Ponsford on Press Gazette: "The Daily Mail has claimed victory in a 42-year circulation war with The Sun. The paper said it has overtaken The Sun’s monthly print circulation for the first time in that period to become the UK’s best selling daily newspaper."

The Mail on Sunday: "It’s a moment of newspaper – and social – history. Officially audited figures show that in May, The Mail on Sunday surged past The Sun to become Britain’s biggest-selling Sunday newspaper. It’s the first time a mid-market newspaper has been the market leader on a Sunday since Queen Victoria’s reign – a profound cultural shift...In this frightening new era of intolerance, the MoS has become a beacon for those who believe in free speech and who refuse to be cowed by the tyranny of the Twitter mob and hard-Left agitators who believe everyone should be forced to think like them."

BBC News presenter Clive Myrie, interviewed by the Guardian: “I could count on the fingers of one hand the amount of racist abuse that I received from when I started in journalism in 1988 through to about 2008, though there was a guy in the early 90s who would send faeces in the post. But it has picked up in the last decade and become incredibly more prevalent in the last few years. Why has that happened? I don’t know.”

An open letter to the Society of Editors from 50 BAME journalists: "We request you to consider positive recruitment campaigns from ethnic communities across Britain with a declared commitment; properly paid traineeships for BAME youngsters with adequate mentoring and equal promotion and pay for BAME staff already in newsrooms. A good start would be regular reviews of diversity in newsrooms and for an initial assessment and publication of current BAME representations in news organisations. We call upon the Society of Editors to urge its members to use this period of reflection to re-evaluate and reform past practices and move forward with a totally skilled workforce with appropriate BAME representation. Let’s all get the whole story."

Bristol Post editor Mike Norton in an editorial on why the paper won't carry police pictures of those alleged to have pulled down the statue of slave owner Edward Colston: "We think the majority of Bristolians accept that the years of frustration and offence at the statue’s existence mitigate what happened two weeks ago. That is why the Bristol Post or Bristol Live will not publishing the police photographs. We are not criticising the police and - unlike the council - have no influence over whether or not those responsible should be sought. But we do not agree that the actions of those young people should be reduced to a simple act of criminal damage which ignores the complex context and history around it."

Donald Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale on coverage for the poor turnout at the Tulsa rally, reported by the Guardian: “For the media to now celebrate the fear that they helped create is disgusting, but typical and it makes us wonder why we bother credentialing media for events when they don’t do their full jobs as professionals.”



Eliot Higgins on Twitter: "In case you missed it overnight, the President of the United States tweeted a faked CNN video, literally fake news, to attack CNN for being fake news, and to warn people to look out for fake news. The brain worms must have been particularly hungry."

Big Issue editor Paul McNamee on Twitter on The Impartial Reporter's Rodney Edwards: "An incredibly worthy winner. Brilliant reporting of a very dark story. Rodney is one of best, most naturally born reporters I've ever met. He is evidence of why a vibrant local press is essential. More power to him."

Matthew Goodwin on UnHeard: "Not so long ago, after the brutal atrocity at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the world pledged to defend freedom of speech. Now, only five years later, we seemingly do not have much of a problem with newspapers removing comment editors, publishers refusing to work on books they disagree with and students calling for the sacking of journalists whose views they disagree with."

journalismtips on Twitter: "Newsquest is now planning to take on school leavers as apprentices. Is this a good or bad thing for the industry? On the one hand there are many graduates who can’t string a sentence together; on the other much much cheaper reporters."

John Humphrys in the Daily Mail: "Magistrates’ courts in small towns are where journalists’ careers were forged back in the heyday of the local paper. It’s where you learned the only thing that mattered was getting it right. Especially names. Spell a name incorrectly and you were dead meat."

David Quantick on Twitter: "There's a certain style of Bob Dylan review where the reviewer seems to think they are Bob Dylan."

Alan Hawkes in a letter to The Times [£]: "Sir, There were several articles in Saturday’s comment section (Jun 20) with which I profoundly disagreed. Keep up the good work."

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Media Quotes of the Week: From Harry and Meghan plan to chose 'credible' media and drop out of Royal rota system to scandal of Mirror journalists portrayal in Christine Keeler drama

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex on their website: "In the spring of 2020, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be adopting a revised media approach to ensure diverse and open access to their work. This adjustment will be a phased approach as they settle into the new normality of their updated roles. This updated approach aims to:

• Engage with grassroots media organisations and young, up-and-coming journalists; Invite specialist media to specific events/engagements to give greater access to their cause-driven activities, widening the spectrum of news coverage; Provide access to credible media outlets focused on objective news reporting to cover key moments and events; Continue to share information directly to the wider public via their official communications channels; No longer participate in the Royal Rota system."

Piers Morgan on Twitter: "Harry & Meghan have just published their new rulebook for the media to obey. Even Putin wouldn't try to pull a stunt like this. I fear they've both gone nuts."

The Times [£] in a leader: "Prince Harry has never made any secret of his dislike of the attention and scrutiny that it brings. He remains haunted by the memory of the treatment of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, and has spoken of fears of the impact of such attention on his wife. The duchess for her part has suffered vile online abuse. Their desire to shield their son, Archie, from similar scrutiny is understandable."

Manchester Evening News reporter Beth Abbit, who covered the four Reynhard Sinaga rape trials, on Twitter:  "Should mention that my bosses at @MENnewsdesk gave me time to cover the Reynhard Sinaga case properly, allowing me to sit in court each day, even though they had to wait more than a year for the story. Great to work for a paper that gives you that freedom."

Harry Cole in the Mail on Sunday: "When asked at a Christmas party about his plans for Westminster’s press pack known as the Lobby, Dominic Cummings simply drew a finger across his throat. Whitehall’s ‘disrupter in chief’ has added the antiquated system for briefing political journalists to his list of things to blow up."

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, in a statement on the Lobby: “This decision to move the briefings from Parliament to Downing Street will make it more difficult, particularly for local papers and small press organisations to attend the briefings. The chair of the lobby has raised concerns that this will make lobby journalists’ jobs harder. Downing Street must consult with those reporters affected as this sends out a very worrying message to the press at the start of the new year and a new government. Proper discussions are needed so Westminster journalists can continue to do their jobs, holding government to account, without impediment.”

Amol Rajan on Twitter: "Scoop: John Humphrys is joining the Daily Mail as a columnist. My very distinguished former colleague, who left @BBCr4today in September after 32yrs, starts on Saturday. Replaces Peter Oborne. Will range beyond politics. Suspect @BBC will be in his sights from time to time!"

Index on Censorship chief executive Jodie Ginsberg  launching a new project aiming to expose the way those with wealth and influence use legal threats to shut down investigations by journalists: “Defamation law was reformed in 2013 to make it harder for people who had little or no connection to the UK to bring lawsuits here. However, we are still seeing people and organisations with almost no UK links bringing expensive and spurious defamation cases. In addition, increasingly people are turning to privacy and data protection laws in an attempt to prevent journalists reporting on corrupt, illegal or poor practice.”

Northern Echo editor Hannah Chapman in a comment on the paper's 150th anniversary:  "If I have to read another article in the national press about the death of local newspapers, or be asked one more time how we can hope to compete with social media-inspired citizen journalists, I might throw my phone into the River Skerne. And that’s not me looking through rose tinted spectacles. These are undoubtedly tough times, and we may be a bit battered and bruised, but we’re a long way from the description of the regional media that is commonly circulated. WE’VE just come through an election campaign that was marred by dishonesty and nastiness, with the national press sticking determinedly to their party lines. It was left to the largely non-partisan local and regional media to focus on the actual issues that matter to our readers, and hold candidates to account for their campaign statements.”

James Marriott in The Times [£]:  "Adults are likely to be loyal to one newspaper. Teenagers prefer to browse a number of outlets. Almost every teenage phone has Instagram installed on it — barely any has a news app. Even the influence of the BBC is fading — Ofcom reports that teenagers are more familiar with YouTube and Netflix. The average age of a BBC One viewer is now 61. It’s hardly worth pointing out that YouTube, Netflix, Snapchat and Instagram do not employ foreign correspondents or fund investigative journalism or send reporters to court cases and council meetings. But for many in their teens, news is now more likely to come from an influencer than from a journalist."

Roy Greenslade on Twitter: "Reviews of BBC1's excellent Trial of Christine Keeler ranged from the silly to the intelligent. But none mentioned the one big error - the cartoonish stereotypical portrayal of the Daily Mirror and its news editor. Hopelessly wrong."

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Media Quotes of the Week: From in victory and defeat politicians blame media to Guardian praises local newspapers - what a shame it sold them off

Jeremy Corbyn, as reported by Press Gazette: "The pressure on those surrounding politicians is often very, very high indeed. The media intrusion on people’s lives is very high indeed. And the attacks that take place against family and loved ones of politicians continue and they are disgraceful and frankly they are disgusting…I want to thank my three sons for the huge support they give me and thank my wife Laura Alvarez for all that she puts up [with] because of the way the media behave towards me, towards her and indeed towards my party during this election campaign.”

Labour shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald on the  BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "We've accepted that the print media are rained against us, but my goodness me. I'm going to look at us. We're the important part here. We got this wrong, but if the BBC are going to hold themselves out as somehow having conducted themselves in an impartial manner, I think they've really got to have a look in the mirror. We've got a lot to say about this."

The Times [£] reports: "Downing Street is squaring up to the BBC, threatening a boycott of Radio 4’s Today and a review of the licence fee as Conservatives fume about the broadcaster’s coverage of the election. The government confirmed yesterday that it had launched a review into decriminalising non-payment of the licence fee as punishment for what the Tories see as pro-Remain bias."

John Humphrys in the Daily Mail: "Johnson and Corbyn have been boycotting Today for a very long time, and I and my colleagues have often 'empty chaired' them. By which I mean we had drawn it to the attention of the listener that they had chosen not to appear. That's our duty. Otherwise the listener might think it was we who were denying them an appearance. As a former Today presenter, I'm saddened and worried that they have been boycotting us — and, we are told, that Johnson's government will continue to do so. I believe the listener is entitled to hold people in power to account. It enables democracy. And answering pre-selected questions on social media is not being held to account."

Huw Edwards on LinkedIn: "In the last week of the campaign, I was simultaneously accused (yeah, by The Sun) of being a Labour supporter, and (on Twitter) of deliberately facilitating a Conservative victory. I have been accused of being a Plaid Cymru voter (this is a difficult notion in London, I have to say) and in one spectacular zinger of a letter a few years ago, a 'vile Welsh neo-con'."

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, in a statement: "Flagrant bullying rhetoric has been targeted at the BBC and Channel 4 during this election campaign, with threats to their futures issued in response to editorial decisions. These have been amplified over the weekend with comments from the government about reviewing the funding of the BBC and decriminalisation of the licence fee. Let’s be clear – knee-jerk changes to the licence fee would massively damage BBC programmes and news. The corporation is already facing serious cuts in the coming year, with potentially more on the horizon. It needs greater resources, not an attempt to destabilise its very existence. The NUJ salutes the hard work and professionalism of its members who covered one of the most divisive and difficult of election campaigns.”

Editor Mike Sassi announces his departure from the Nottingham Evening Post 

Richard Woodward on Twitter: "There are many issues for regional papers, but one which I’ve not seen talked about often is the loss of experience. So many editors like Mike have left recently. Hopefully he will stay in journalism, but many others haven’t. Papers need that wealth of knowledge."

Kenan Malik in the Guardian: "The obsession with social media has led many to neglect another part of the media ecosystem that is also of vital importance – local newspapers. In the age of global communication, it is easy to condescend to local papers as quaint and old-fashioned. Yet they play a vital role in sustaining both journalism and democracy. It was the Yorkshire Evening Post that broke the story about Jack Williment-Barr and subsequently played a major role in responding to the attempts to dismiss it as fake news. Some of the best investigative journalism these days emerges from local papers – for instance, in the work of the Manchester Evening News’ Jennifer Williams."

Emily Bell in the Guardian: "One of the very few heroes of the UK election campaign is James Mitchinson, editor of the Yorkshire Post. Mitchinson’s email to a reader who would not believe a (true) story about a sick child left to wait on the floor of a Leeds hospital is a model of both public service journalism and how to debunk a lie."

Manchester Evening News politics and investigations editor Jennifer Williams on Twitter:  "Another ode in the Guardian to local news while failing to mention the virtual silence that accompanied the flogging off of its local titles at the time. I’m being very restrained here."

Alan Rusbridger in the Guardian: After the Yorkshire Evening Post‘s reporting of the Leeds story was questioned, its editor in chief, James Mitchinson, wrote a long and considered reply to a reader who, on the basis of something she read on social media, thought the story was fake. Mitchinson’s reply courteously asks the reader why she would believe the word of a total stranger (who might not even exist) over a newspaper she had read for many years in good faith. The fact the paper knew the story to be true was, said Mitchinson, down to “bog-standard journalism”. It was a powerful statement of why good journalism – independent and decently crafted – should matter. So let’s hear it for bog-standard journalism. There’s too little of it. It may not be enough, but it’s all we have."

Manchester Evening News politics and investigations editor Jennifer Williams on Twitter:   "Alan Rusbridger was editor of the Guardian when the Guardian sold its regional press. As it turns out, the Manchester Evening News is doing pretty well these days, so I’m not complaining. But his homage to the local press is still a decade after the fact."

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Media Quotes of the Week: From will another journalist ever be PM after Boris? to reporters matter more than anyone else in journalism

Ray Snoddy in The Journalist: "It is highly unlikely that anyone is going to rush to appoint another journalist as Prime Minister anytime soon. The former journalist and maybe soon to be former Prime Minister Boris Johnson has surely seen to that. He has already secured the title of worst Prime Minister in living memory and may already be the worst in history, given his arrogance, incompetence, track record of failure and bluster."

Roy Greenslade in the Guardian on Dominic Cummings: "He appears determined to be his own man rather than be part of someone else’s story. Whether or not this is bad for the country – we shall see – it cannot be denied it’s rather good for our trade. We thrive on colourful characters courting controversy. Journalism is often the beneficiary of big egos in the sense that, in promoting themselves, they inevitably provide stories...So, in spite of the darkness of his message, let me applaud Cummings, the messenger who has stepped out of the shadows. We may not have him for long, of course, but let’s enjoy him while we can."

John Simson @JohnSimpsonNews on Twitter: "When I became the BBC’s political editor in 1980 the disgraceful old lobby system where ‘Downing St sources’ were quoted for everything was rampant. Thatcher, Major & Blair did away with it. Now it’s back. I think journalists should identify their sources."

Pic: NY Times

New York Times president and ceo and former BBC director-general Mark Thompson giving the 2019 Steve Hewlett Memorial Lecture: "The media world is dividing into potential global winners, probable survivors, and the rest. The UK certainly has possible survivors – among national newspapers, the Daily Mail and Guardian for instance. But with due respect – and notwithstanding the sizeable international audiences which several UK newspapers have built up – none looks like a potential global winner....I don’t see how all the current national titles survive. At regional and local level, it looks like something close to a wipe-out without dramatic intervention."

Paul Dacre in a letter to the Financial Times: “Admirable chap he may be, but Geordie Greig, in his Lunch With The FT, is as economic with the actualité [news] as your paper is in reporting matters Brexit. He claims 265 advertisers came back to the Mail in his year as editor. In fact, far more than that number left during the same period.”

Yorksire Post editor James Mitchinson in an interview with the Financial Times says the YP will soon have to put up a paywall: “We will have to ask readers to contribute financially. I do not think there is an alternative.”

State approved press regulator IMPRESS in its third annual report: "The Conversation, Bedford Independent and Plant Based News are among 38 new titles to have come under the regulatory remit of IMPRESS in the past year. They join a steadily growing membership of over 130 newspapers and news sites that also include award-winning titles Bellingcat, New Internationalist and The Lincolnite, reaching over 11 million readers each month. In 2018-19, IMPRESS dealt with 39 complaints and published one arbitration award, seven adjudications and issued three advisory notices concerning unwarranted press intrusion."

John Humphrys talking to Jeremy Vine on BBC Radio 2: "The really big job, that matters more than anything else, is that of reporter. Without reporters we don't have information. Without reporters we don't have democracy. Reporters are at the heart of journalism."

Jeremy Vine @theJeremy Vine on Twitter: "Totally agree with John Humphrys on this. People say reporters are jealous of presenters — but all presenters, in their hearts, know that reporters are doing the most important thing."

John Humphrys asked by Observer reader Robert Jones if he would encourage young people to go into journalism: "I wouldn’t be encouraging, no, because it is an immensely competitive field. When my son wanted to be a cellist, he had an audition at the Royal College, and I went in with him to turn the pages of the music. When he finished, the tutor said: 'Hmm, I would advise you not to become a professional cellist.' You can imagine my son’s face. And then the tutor said: 'Unless doing anything else would make you very unhappy.' That’s corny, but that’s how I feel about journalism."

Media Quotes of the Week: From Guardian's shame over Cameron 'privileged pain' leader to anti-press term 'fake news' has spread worldwide

Guardian readers' editor Paul Chadwick in his Open Door column on the complaints over the Guardian editorial asserting David Cameron only suffered "privileged pain" over the death of his son: "It can only ever be a feeling, not amenable to proof or measurement, but this past week in the office I sensed a kind of vicariously shared shame. Unsigned and badged with the masthead, as is usual for editorials in most papers, the piece had appeared to be the considered view of the institution. That magnified the damage compared with the harm that might result from a serious misjudgment by, say, a bylined columnist or a cartoonist."

Guardian editor-in-chief Katherine Viner quoted by Chadwick: “I am personally completely devastated that it was ever published in any form in the Guardian, and that we caused distress to so many people.”

David Yelland @David Yelland on Twitter: "Dick Emery died in 1983. Is this really the best The Sun backbench could come up with on a day like today?"

Robert Peston @Peston on Twitter: "If you are under 40 and you understand this reference, do let me know."

David Yelland @David Yelland on Twitter: "Of all the “Brexit editors” the most nuanced and intelligent is Geordie Greig at Mail. Here he treats Judges fairly and he ran Peter Oborne too today. Kudos to him but wish he’d back a 2nd referendum as he could change history.....maybe.... you never know...."

John Humphrys, presenting the Today programme for the last time after 32 years, on the BBC: “There’s a lot wrong with it as an organisation, there’s a lot wrong with every organisation, and it’s facing a lot of challenges from social media and changing behaviours. But I believe we need the BBC as much now as we ever have done, I simply can’t imagine this country without it - it is an unthinkable thought...Today matters for tomorrow. And if that’s a rather corny way to end my years on the programme well so be it. And that’s it from me.”

John Humphrys in the Daily Mail on the BBC after the EU referendum: "Leave had won – and this was not what the BBC had expected. Nor what it wanted.Their expressions were as grim as the look on the face of a football supporter when his team’s star player misses the penalty that would have won them the cup. Bosses, almost to a man and woman, could simply not grasp how anyone could have put a cross in the Leave box on the referendum ballot paper. I’m not sure the BBC as a whole ever quite had a real grasp of what was going on in Europe, or of what people in this country thought about it.’

Ben Judah in The Atlantic: "To her fans, Cadwalladr is an icon—a brave, irreverent, truth-seeking missile, exposing a nexus of corruption that is subverting our body politic, not only the Woodward and Bernstein of Brexit, but also its Emmeline Pankhurst, tirelessly campaigning for what she sees as a just outcome. But to her opponents, she is something else: a hysterical middle-aged conspiracy theorist, someone who pushed her stories beyond what the facts supported and who was willing to legally threaten journalists she was working with to get her way—or, in the words of the BBC journalist Andrew Neil, a “mad cat woman.”

Huff Post's political editor Paul Waugh @paulwaugh on Twitter on Monday: "Just worked out that if the statutory 32-hour week applied to my coverage of #LabourConference2019, I would have clocked off around 8.30am today."

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger in a comment: "In attacking American media, President Trump has done more than undermine his own citizens’ faith in the news organizations attempting to hold him accountable. He has effectively given foreign leaders permission to do the same with their countries’ journalists, and even given them the vocabulary with which to do it. They’ve eagerly embraced the approach. My colleagues and I recently researched the spread of the phrase 'fake news,' and what we found is deeply alarming: In the past few years, more than 50 prime ministers, presidents and other government leaders across five continents have used the term 'fake news' to justify varying levels of anti-press activity."

Media Quotes of the Week: From what journalists can do about Trump to getting the local reporter blues when you really want to be Muddy Waters

Washington Post editor Marty Baron, accepting the annual Christopher Hitchens prize, as reported by Vanity Fair: "We will have a new president soon. He was elected after waging an outright assault on the press. Animosity toward the media was a centerpiece of his campaign. He described the press as 'disgusting,' 'scum,' 'lowlifes.' He called journalists the 'lowest form of humanity.' That apparently wasn’t enough. So he called us 'the lowest form of life.' In the final weeks of the campaign he labeled us 'the enemies.' It is no wonder that some members of our staff at The Washington Post and at other news organizations received vile insults and threats of personal harm so worrisome that extra security was required....Many journalists wonder with considerable weariness what it is going to be like for us during the next four—perhaps eight—years. Will we be incessantly harassed and vilified? Will the new administration seize on opportunities to try intimidating us? Will we face obstruction at every turn? If so, what do we do? The answer, I believe, is pretty simple. Just do our job. Do it as it’s supposed to be done."

Jeremy Corbyn, asked by Sam Delaney "Does it really matter what the papers say any more? I get the impression you don’t think speaking with them is important,"in an interview for The Big Issue: "It matters in that it often frames debate. Numbers of people that buy and read newspapers are declining but the number that follow news online is huge. I do a straw poll at meetings, asking ‘how many people buy a newspaper?’. With an older aud-ience you get usually about a third to half buy a newspaper once a week, often the local paper. When you go to a younger audience, it’s almost none. One audience I spoke to, nobody did. They read it online though."

National newspaper executive talking off the record to Digiday: "We’re long past the point of thinking advertising alone pays for the cost of quality journalism. You’re grabbing for pennies. I’m sick of ad tech vendors knocking at my door, promising to give me 10-30 percent increase in yields. For starters, they can’t, but even if they could, it wouldn’t make any difference, because you’re talking pennies. And Facebook is ad tech. You’re encouraging consumption of journalism on a platform other than your own. And for what end? A few pennies. It’s the most ridiculous deal that anyone could strike. And it’s because publishers are so desperate that it seems in any way attractive."

Matthew Parris in The Times [£]: "In time I expect we shall adapt ourselves to the violence of social-media-driven formation of opinion; learn to question; learn to distrust or discount. But for the moment I fear the advance of technology is outrunning our ability to contain and civilise its effects. All at once, too many individuals who had felt solitary, outnumbered in their unbalanced or unpleasant opinions, have learned that there are millions more like them out there. I worry that the social media are putting us in touch with our inner barbarian."

Newsquest's Croydon Guardian editor Andy Parkes in a column in his paper, as reported by Press Gazette: “In an effort to get even more of your news stories onto our websites we would like to invite you to publish your own stories on our website.…write your article as close to the style of a news story as you can, making sure you include detail of the what, who, where and when. Attach any photos you’ve got to go with it and then click send.”

Charlotte Edwardes interviewing John Humphrys in The Times [£]: "He’s constantly asking his bosses whether they want him to leave, displaying that complicated neediness common among journalists. 'Nobody seems desperately keen to get rid of me,' he says. 'I’ve talked to everybody. I keep saying to people, ‘Do you want me to …?"

Roy Greenslade on MediaGuardian on the way the publisher of the Mirror gave up a source to police: "Trinity Mirror has no right to own newspapers. Its board should resign. Read the story of what the publisher did to Robert Norman, as detailed in a Press Gazette interview, and you will understand why."

Martin Stone, ex-journalist, rock guitarist and rare book dealer who died this week, on leaving the Croydon Advertiser, according to his obit in the Telegraph: "I wanted to be Muddy Waters - instead I was covering the Women's Institute donkey derby for seven quid a week."

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