Media Quotes of the Week: From Trump and the press at war to Sun sticks up for BBC journalist

President Trump speaking at CIA headquarters, as reported by Politico: "As you know I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth. Right? And they sort of made it sound like I have this feud with the intelligence community.”

White House press secretary Sean Spicer, as reported by BBC News: "There's been a lot of talk in the media about the responsibility to hold Donald Trump accountable, and I'm here to tell you it goes two ways. We're going to hold the press accountable as well."

Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian: "The larger point is that Spicer wanted to issue a declaration of war against the press, because that is what Trump intends to pursue. The media has become his defining enemy, taking the place of Hillary Clinton as the glue that might bind his supporters. Whatever his own failings to come, he can always get the base riled up in their hatred of the mainstream media."

Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail: "Though I’ve been in journalism all my life, I thoroughly approve of Trump’s undisguised contempt for the White House Press Corps, an even more pompous gang of preening stenographers than our own Boys In The Bubble at Westminster. The mainstream media in America set out to destroy Trump. Yet under Obama they have been pliant cheerleaders, content to take dictation. Why should Trump put up with it? His retaliation has been called ‘un-Presidential’. But there’s a reason The Donald keeps one of boxer Mike Tyson’s belts in his office."

American Civil Liberties Union director Anthony D. Romero in a response to Sean Spicer: "It is shameful that on the first full day of this Administration, we have ominous suggestions of possible government censorship. Our nation was quite literally founded on the principles of a free press and any effort by the Trump Administration to curtail them will be met with vigorous defence of the First Amendment by the ACLU and others. This is a fight the Trump administration will most certainly lose. If Trump wants to take on the First Amendment, we will see him in court."

Matthew Parris in The Times on President Trump[£]: "You might expect the Conservative Party and Tory newspapers to be horrified by this foul-mouthed slob with his crude opinions. We used to expel such types from our national membership. So why the dalliance? The outstanding and obvious reason is Brexit. Its sponsors are anxious about their project and looking for allies. This has led them into idolising a protectionist US president as part of their quest to turn Britain into a global free trade nation."

International Federation of Journalists president Philippe Leruth in a statement: “The journalists’ community holds Donald Trump accountable for his actions as President of the USA and we call on him to abide by core freedom of expression standards that are fundamental to his country’s democracy and its First Amendment rights. We ask President Trump to respect the basic right for US citizens and the rest of the world to be properly and independently informed. The new president not only has a responsibility towards his own national press but also towards the foreign media and citizens across the world.”

Jon Snow ‏@jonsnowC4  on Twitter: "The challenge in reporting Trump is that at times telling the truth sounds so far-fetched that it looks like editorial bias."

Mikc Gilson, quoted by Press Gazette: “How many chief exec’s, chief constables, trust chairman, communication managers, union bosses, council leaders, politicians of all sorts factor this sublimely into their decision making: ‘what if this gets into the press?’. My real fear now is those bosses and decision makers are beginning to rest a little easier, often surrounded as they are by a phalanx of communication officers (often fleeing journalists) who taken together now outnumber journalists working in the patch."

Media Lawyer, on the Society of Editors website, on section 40: "The Government's decision on whether to bring into force provisions which could mean newspapers which have failed to sign up with a "recognised" regulator being forced to pay all the costs in defamation and privacy actions, even if they win, is likely to be delayed for months by legal actions.Government lawyers yesterday filed papers at the High Court defending its decision to launched a consultation on whether to bring the costs provisions - in section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 - into force as well as whether to go ahead with Part Two of the Leveson Inquiry. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Home Office are contesting the application for judicial review of the consultation decision brought by two individuals and a website."

Johnston Press shareholders quoted by the Sunday Times [£] on the company's boss Ashley Highfield: “Highfield got a huge bonus following the restructure of the business two years ago. But since that restructure shareholders have lost 90% of their money.”... “A better word for Highfield’s restructure would be destruction.”

Paul Sandle for Reuters: "Britain's Guardian newspaper is considering becoming a tabloid and outsourcing printing to a rival such as Rupert Murdoch's News UK as one of a series of options to cut costs, sources told Reuters."

Jim Waterson on BuzzFeedNews UK: "Fake news sites have struggled to take hold in the UK political sphere, seemingly because traditional British news outlets are already incredibly adept at filling the market with highly partisan news stories which stretch the truth to its limits."

The Sun in a leader:  "WE often highlight BBC bias. We wouldn’t include political editor Laura Kuenssberg. It was utterly wrong of the BBC Trust to rule she misreported Jeremy Corbyn's views on taking out terrorists. She asked Labour’s pacifist leader if as PM he would order a shoot-to-kill policy if a massacre was under way here. He could just have said Yes, like a sane politician. Instead he waffled and ­ultimately seemed to decide against. Kuenssberg rightly took that as a No. So did we. But a viewer complained she was wrong and the Trust buckled. Kuenssberg’s context, a hypothetical Paris-style attack, was crystal clear. It is not her fault Corbyn cannot coherently answer simple questions."

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Media Quotes of the Week: From national and local press lead onslaught on Section 40 to whose got the biggest ears Gary Lineker or Sun editor Gallagher?

Lynne Anderson, News Media Association deputy chief executive, quoted by the Sun after a YouGov poll showed just four per cent of people think a press regulator should be funded by donations from wealthy individuals and trusts, the Impress model, compared with 49 per cent who believe it should be funded by the newspaper industry itself: “This survey demonstrates conclusively that a regulatory regime led by Impress – which is completely reliant upon funding from one wealthy individual, Max Mosley, cannot command the confidence of the public...It is also abundantly clear from the poll that there is absolutely no public appetite for further activity from the Government in this area – such as the reopening of the Leveson Inquiry – when there are other much more pressing priorities at hand.”

Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail on press regulator Impress: "It would be like putting the Kray Twins in charge of the Police Complaints Commission and forcing the victims of their crimes to pick up the bill. To conjure up another analogy, how would Max Mosley like it if one of his call girls decided to sue him for spanking her too hard and — win, lose or draw — he was forced to pay all her legal costs?"

Andrew Norfolk in The Times [£]: "My concern, should the government trigger section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, is its likely impact on investigative journalism. Under section 40, any newspaper that declines “voluntarily” to join Impress would be forced to pay its opponent’s legal costs in any claim brought for libel or breach of privacy, even if it won the case. At a stroke, this would destroy the delicate balancing act that invariably surrounds the decision-making process at any responsible newspaper before publishing an article that could expose it to a civil claim in the courts...Be under no illusion. Section 40 ostensibly seeks to protect the weak and the poor, but it would kill investigative print journalism. It would render the rich and powerful unaccountable. To implement such a measure, in a nation that calls itself free and democratic, would be madness."

Tom Bower in The Times [£]: "Reliance on the truth as a defence against greed and chicanery is now endangered by the government’s refusal to rule out implementing section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act. In a nutshell, if a newspaper refuses to register with Impress, the government’s approved regulator bankrolled by Max Mosley and staffed by his anti-media sympathisers, then newspapers will be compelled to pay the costs of claimants even if their claim fails. Crooks like Robert Maxwell could sue, lose their case having been exposed in court as liars, and still receive millions of pounds from the victorious newspaper."

Neil Hodgkinson, editor-in-chief of Trinity Mirror's Humber & Lincolnshire Region, quoted by the Mirror on Section 40: "This draconian law could have prevented public interest revelations such as a businessman falsely posing as a Falklands war hero to boost his business, lavish spending by health chiefs on trips to Florida, or the rightful exposure of care home staff and their abuse of an elderly patient. Legal action was threatened. Would we have had to think twice knowing the cost of bankrolling both sides? Papers such as ours invest in good journalism. We were praised by Leveson. Now, local media may face bankruptcy for serving public interest. Local democracy will suffer as a result."

Alastair Machray, editor of Trinity Mirror's Liverpool Echo, also quoted in the Mirror:  "Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act? It’s a free pass for the guilty. Call us old-fashioned up here, but we ain’t that keen on the conmen, the paedophiles, the bent politicians. And our job at the Liverpool Echo is to protect the public from them. But under Section 40 those villains just have to threaten legal action, safe in the knowledge that the thought of paying the costs – win or lose – is a massive barrier to us as we seek to publish the facts."

Marc Reeves, editor of the Birmingham Mail, writing in his own paper: "The sanction which would see us liable for all costs in a case, even if we won, would in my view incentivise complainants to bypass existing informal and formal routes to trigger litigation immediately. Just one small action resulting in a costs award of £100,000 could lead to irreparable harm to our finances. Any more may well be fatal."

Hugh Tomlinson Q.C., chair of Hacked Off, responding to the fears of local newspaper editors: "All this is based on the assumption that local newspapers will do the bidding of the national press and refuse to join a recognised regulator. Of course, if local newspapers do join such a regulator they face no adverse costs orders and receive costs protection against rich “libel bullies”. There is no “chilling effect”. Local and regional newspapers are still respected and trusted by the public. They risk losing that respect and trust if they allow themselves to be used by the corporate national press to defend the indefensible."

Former foreign secretary Douglas Hurd in newly released cabinet documents on the execution of Observer journalist Farzad Bazoft after he was hanged in Iraq in 1990: “In the atmosphere brought about by our present difficulties, Iraq would see any action against credit as a further political response to Bazoft and would hit back hard. That would be bad for our wider commercial interests where our competitors would happily step in to take up our share of the market.”

Lineker

Sun ed Gallagher

Gary Lineker, interviewed in the Financial Times, about coming under attack from the Sun, which suggested he should be 'out on his ears' from the BBC: “It didn’t bother me, it didn’t worry me, I wasn’t, oh, my God, I’m going to lose my job. I got phone calls from people at the BBC almost immediately. They were very supportive. They can insult me all they like. I don’t mind. The editor of The Sun has got much bigger jug-ears than I have.”

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Media Quotes of the Week: From entrapment won Allardyce nil, to Littlejohn is a Billy Bragg fan

The Telegraph in a leader after its revelations ended the career of the England football manager: "Sam Allardyce has manifestly failed to live up to the standards expected of an England manager. His willingness to engage in detailed conversations with people he believed represented wealthy foreign business interests about how to get around football’s rules show that he is not the man to champion probity and honesty in the game. It is right that he has gone."

Sam Allardyce, as reported by BBC News: "Unfortunately it was an error of judgement on my behalf. I've paid the consequences. Entrapment has won on this occasion and I have to accept that."

Daniel Taylor in the Guardian: "If you have followed Allardyce’s career, the infamous Panorama documentary and the chequered past of his agent, Mark Curtis, it is not any surprise the man the FA appointed in July was ripe for a newspaper sting. It is unusual, perhaps, that it is the Daily Telegraph having a go at playing the Fake Sheikh and there are parts of its coverage that, to be blunt, are questionable, to say the least."

FA chairman Greg Clarke interviewed in the Telegraph:  “Where you don’t have an inquisitive, free press, very dark things happen in the corners of the world, which are hidden. There is nothing wrong with using what techniques you have to use to expose wrongdoing.”

Pope Francis, meeting with Italy's national council of journalists, as reported by the Catholic News Agency: “I hope that more and more journalism everywhere is a tool of construction, a factor for the common good, an accelerator of processes of reconciliation; that it may know how to reject the temptation of stirring up confrontation, with language that fans the flames of division, instead favoring the culture of encounter.”

Nick Cohen in  The Spectator: "Corbyn has no good writers on his side. In my world of liberal journalism, everyone is saying that when talented journalists decide to support Corbyn, their talent abandons them, and they produce gushing pieces that would embarrass a lovestruck teenager."

Roy Greenslade on MediaGuardian: "No publisher, despite differing motivations, can escape the commercial effects of a technological revolution that is in the process of destroying the funding mechanism that has underpinned newspaper companies for more than 150 years. Journalists are aware of this but tend to turn a blind eye to reality. They blame publishers for the cutbacks, or at least, the way those cutbacks are carried out."

How Jeremy Paxman's father, Keith, introduced him to his golf playing friends, according to an extract from his memoir, A Life in Questions, serialised in The Times [£]: “One of those homosexual communists from the BBC”.

Kelvin MacKenzie in the Sun: "I HEAR brown-noser of the millennium Sir Craig Oliver is soon to serialise his book on his five years as Director of Communications for David Cameron at No10. Apparently it’s a dull old tome as you would expect from somebody who started out in life with a diploma in broadcasting from Cardiff School of Journalism. In the book he takes a number of pot shots at this fine organ, and is especially critical of The Sun’s pro-Brexit stand. It’s that very misunderstanding of ordinary people that explains why both Oliver and his boss are now unemployed."

Giles Coren in The Times [£] on his restaurant reviews: "I am fed up with writing elaborate, original articles that veer off at tangents. After all, where has that ever got me? Nowhere. Nothing but complaints about how I seem to think my own life and opinions are more important than the food on the plate. Henceforth, I am just going to phone it in like everyone else."

Paul Farhi in the Washington Post: "Folks, I know a lot of you don’t like the people who work in my chosen profession, the news business. I’m aware you think we’re lazy and unfair (yes, I got your emails and tweets on this topic — a few thousand of them). Of course, I disagree with you. I know a lot of fine people in the newsgathering arts and sciences. But that’s not why I’m writing. I’m writing because I have a request: Please stop calling us 'the media.' Yes, in some sense, we are the media. But not in the blunt way you use the phrase. It’s so imprecise and generic that it has lost any meaning. It’s — how would you put this? — lazy and unfair."

Jose Mourhino responds to his critics in the media, as reported by BBC Sport: “The Einsteins need money to live, they can’t coach, they can’t sit on the bench, they can’t win matches. They can speak, they can write, they can criticise the work of other people, but I am a good man. I am good man of goodwill. I do lots of charity, I help so many people, so why not also feed the Einsteins? That’s fine.”

Paul Holden who runs the Worthing Journal, quoted by HoldTheFrontPage: “If newspapers are to survive, they need to go back to basics and study publications from the Victorian and Edwardian eras, when, if the mayor sneezed, readers knew about it. Those still serving up a diet of 1980s Sun-style headlines and celebrity gossip dressed up as news have had their day.”

Richard Littlejohn in  the Mail: "Sifting through my music, you’d soon come to the conclusion that I lived in a scruffy squat in Islington, subscribed to the Guardian and had a wardrobe full of duffel coats, Guy Fawkes masks and CND badges. My collection reads like an A-Z of agitprop. For a start, I must have a dozen albums by the Left-wing singer/songwriter Billy Bragg, hero of every protest rally over the past 30 years, from the miners’ strike to Stop The War. Truth is, I’ve always been a great admirer of Bragg, aka the Bard of Barking, even though we’re not exactly politically simpatico."

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Media Quotes of the Week: Bashing Boris: What fellow journalists think of the man who wanted to be PM plus a bit of gloating from the Daily Mail

Polly Toynbee in the Guardian on Boris Johnson:  "What’s plain is that Boris Johnson and the rest never had a plan. It was derelict of the media – broadcasters in particular – not to force the leavers to define what leaving meant. Instead they got away with airy generalities, hiding multiple contradictions and dishonesties...He had no plan because he never thought Brexit would win: it was a jolly jape to nearly win and tickle Tory party members into electing him. They probably will and now this sociopath with no concern for country, economy or citizens will be our prime minister."

Tina Brown on Boris Johnson on the DailyBeast: "Johnson’s fake disarray—his bonhomous tanker of beer and Falstaffian spilling gut, his genial, jokey façade concealing a deeply opportunistic nature—allowed him alliances with such odious figures as UKIP’s xenophobic leader Nigel Farage, whose rat poison salesman persona would never have won Brexit without the fig leaf of Boris’s charm. His other powerful alliance was with the Voldemort of Middle England, Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail—with whom, I am told, Boris was closeted on June 9th over lunch in a private room at Marks club, in a conversation so confidential in content they put a chair in front of the door."

Nick Cohen in the Observer: "The media do not damn themselves, so I am speaking out of turn when I say that if you think rule by professional politicians is bad wait until journalist politicians take over. Johnson and Gove are the worst journalist politicians you can imagine: pundits who have prospered by treating public life as a game."

Martin Wolf in the Financial Times: "David Cameron took a huge gamble and lost. The fearmongering and outright lies of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, The Sun and the Daily Mail have won. The UK, Europe, the west and the world are damaged. The UK is diminished and seems likely soon to be divided. Europe has lost its second-biggest and most outward-looking power. The hinge between the EU and the English-speaking powers has been snapped. This is probably the most disastrous single event in British history since the second world war."

Rachel Sylvester in The Times [£]: "Mr Johnson is undeniably a rock star politician with the charisma to put a smile on voters’ faces. For his most audacious act yet, he wants to morph from showman to statesman, as a valiant Henry V. The danger for him is that as reality hits and he is forced to make difficult choices, Boris the Buffoon, who turned himself into Boris the Brave Brexiteer, may find that many Leave voters begin to see him as Boris the Betrayer."

Rafael Behr in the Guardian on Boris Johnson: "There is nothing cuddly about voracity for power, allergy to responsibility and infidelity to any cause besides personal advancement. Yet that is the constellation of traits that forms the former London mayor’s character, exerting such narcissistic gravity that no passing truth escapes unbent."

Jenni Russell in The Times [£]: "His gravest flaw is that even he doesn’t know what he stands for, as we saw this week. A former aide says he changes position constantly because his focus is always on pleasing the audience of the moment, whether it’s billionaire property developers, campaigners for affordable housing or Eurosceptics who might make him PM. Boris could get away with this as a figurehead mayor. But now all our futures may depend on this evasive, crowd-pleasing clown. To govern is to choose, a responsibility he is psychologically and practically unfitted to bear. The Tory party will be fools if they now choose him to govern."

Old quote of the week

Max Hastings in the Daily Mail in October 2012: "If the day ever comes that Boris Johnson becomes tenant of Downing Street, I shall be among those packing my bags for a new life in Buenos Aires or suchlike, because it means that Britain has abandoned its last pretensions to be a serious country... He is not a man to believe in, to trust or respect save as a superlative exhibitionist. He is bereft of judgment, loyalty and discretion. Only in the star-crazed, frivolous Britain of the 21st century could such a man have risen so high, and he is utterly unfit to go higher still."

Mail columnist Sarah Vine in an email to her husband Michael Gove, leaked to Sky News: "One simple message you MUST have SPECIFIC assurances from Boris OTHERWISE you cannot guarantee your support. The details can be worked out later on, but without that you have no leverage. Crucially the membership will not have the necessary reassurance to back Boris, neither will Dacre / Murdoch, who instinctively dislike Boris but trust your ability enough to support a Boris / Gove ticket."

Rupert Murdoch @rupertmurdochon Twitter: "Congratulations Michael Gove. Friends always knew his principles would overcome his personal friendships."

Sun editor Tony Gallagher to the Guardian after the Brexit victory: “So much for the waning power of the print media.”

Daily Mail in a leader: "As for those of our readers who decided to vote Remain, judging that the dangers of Brexit were too great, this paper has enormous respect for their conscientious concern for our country. But we firmly trust and believe that their fears will prove unfounded."

Peter Preston in the Observer: "It wasn’t the baleful ogres of newspaper proprietorship that swung this vote. Lord Rothermere prefers the Mail on Sunday Remainers to the manic Leavers in the next office. Rupert Murdoch didn’t have tell Tony Gallagher which way to swing: the Sun’s editor did what came naturally to him. No: the foundations of this leaving have been laid for 40 years in a persistent reluctance to report what the EU is all about – a failure to explain."

Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail:  "This is not a time for gloating, but what the hell. To paraphrase that manic Norwegian football commentator: Call Me Dave, Boy George, Angela Merkel, Jean-Claude Juncker, Up Yours Delors, Barack Obama, Mark Carney, Goldman Sachs, Polly Toynbee, J.K. Rowling, Peter Mandelson, Neil Kinnock . . . your boys took one hell of a beating!"

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Media Quotes of the Week: From press lashes Hacked Off over Whittingdale dominatrix conspiracy theory to should hacks reveal their tax?

The Spectator blog: "Labour’s demands that Whittingdale recuses himself from the issue of press regulation is intended to develop Hacked Off’s conspiracy theory that Whittingdale has gone easy on the press because he was being blackmailed. It overlooks a crucial point, though: the Culture Secretary has no power over the press, nor does anyone else in the government. Britain’s press is free, and journalists can be as rude as they like to ministers without fear of reprisal. There is quite simply no mechanism of reprisal — because the press fought off David Cameron’s disgraceful attempt to impose press regulation."

Daily Mail in a leader: "And the Oscar for egregious hypocrisy goes to… the trouser-dropping luvvies, posturing lawyers and third-rate academics of the anti-newspaper campaign group, Hacked Off.This is the organisation, remember, founded to protect celebrities' private lives from unwarranted Press intrusion. Yet now it castigates newspapers for failing to reveal that an ex-girlfriend of John Whittingdale was a prostitute."

David Aaronovitch in The Times [£]: "In wrongly deploying against a political foe his entirely private activities, the high-minded have argued themselves into the gutter."

The Telegraph in a leader: "Surely Hacked Off should be welcoming the restraint of editors. Moreover, the most dominant force in the media nowadays is not the Press, but the BBC. Has there been a conspiracy between the corporation and Hacked Off to damage Mr Whittingdale? Perhaps Newsnight would care to investigate."

Roy Greenslade on Newsnight: "I think it is a bit much to castigate the newspapers for doing the right thing for once.'

Nick Cohen @NickCohen4 on Twitter: "Let me see if I can get this right. Hacked Off is complaining that the tabloids DIDN'T invade a politician's privacy."

The Guardian in a leader: "To pretend, in the absence of any other revelation, that a consensual adult sex life exposes a person to blackmail or makes them unfit for office is an idea whose time has gone – and good riddance."

Robert Peston on his ITV blog:"The notion that there was a conspiracy is, I think, nuts. Because it was never going to work.  If there is one thing I've learned in more than 30 years as a hack, it is that journalists can't keep a secret. They/we can't help ourselves - we gossip. So any deliberate cover up would always have failed. What is clear to me is that this story was not published because the four newspapers failed to establish that it was a story - and the vendor of the story was asking a lot of money for it, £20,000....The Sunday People was the first newspaper to be offered the story at the end of 2013. It approached Tom Watson - the Labour MP, now deputy leader of the Labour party, then a colleague of Mr Whittingdale on the Culture committee - for his advice on whether it should publish. He told them he did not see there was a public-interest reason to run the story on Mr Whittingdale's affair, since he was a single man, this was his private life, and the People had no evidence that Mr Whittingdale had paid for sex."

John Whittingdale, in a statement to Newsnight, on his past relationship with a sex worker: "At no time did she give me any indication of her real occupation and I only discovered this when I was made aware that someone was trying to sell a story about me to tabloid newspapers. As soon as I discovered, I ended the relationship. This is an old story which was a bit embarrassing at the time. The events occurred long before I took up my present position and it has never had any influence on the decisions I have made as culture secretary."

Labour's Chris Bryant on Newsnight: "It seems the press were quite deliberately holding a sword of Damocles over John Whittingdale. He has a perfect right to a private life but as soon as he knew this he should have withdrawn from all regulation of the press."

Neil Wallis ‏@neilwallis1 on Twitter: "Charles Moore (great journo, btw) confronted v elderly parents, unknowing relatives, & Justin Welby over his illegitimacy...could a tabloid?"

Daily Mail hits out at Guardian

The Daily Mail in a leader: "Enough of this madness. Instead of grovelling before the politics of envy mob, the Prime Minister should be arguing that, for most people, Inheritance Tax (IHT) — by re-taxing income that has already been taxed — is unfair. He should also be shouting from the rooftops the moral case for low taxation. Leave aside the rank hypocrisy of the BBC and the Guardian, which have led the charge over the leaked Panama papers from their moral high horses — despite their own history of adopting elaborate measures to minimise their tax liabilities."

Guardian head of media jane martinson ‏@janemartinson on Twitter: "Surprised that it took the Mail so long to back the wealthy rather than attack huge offshore industry?"

Michael Wolff in GQ: "As for Rusbridger's Guardian, in an age of low interest rates and costly internet economics, that Guardian is either a thing of the past or on a suicide mission."

Peter Barron in his farewell column after 17 years as editor of the Northern Echo:  "Local newspapers have a vital role to play in society and my parting wish is that they are given the time and support for quality, campaigning journalism that makes a difference to people’s lives. The future of local journalism cannot just be built on 'click-bait' – stories which attract the biggest number of hits online. There will be those who call me a dinosaur but if I see another 'stomach-churning compilation of the best spot-squeezing videos' on a ‘news’ website, I may well take a hammer to my computer. Exploding spots may get lots of hits, and that may attract digital advertising revenue, but it isn’t news."

Daily Mail in an editorial: "Millions of Americans will be talking about it, after a paper reported the full story. And inevitably, social media chatrooms all around the globe will be abuzz with the names.
Yet thanks to a Court of Appeal injunction, the once-free Press of the UK remains banned from revealing the identity of the celebrity married couple who flaunt their happy family lives, with the aid of expensive PRs, while one of them is said to have indulged in an extra-marital threesome. Could anything more starkly expose the law’s failure to keep up with the age of the internet, in which no judge’s ruling can stop stories from flashing round the world within seconds?

Hugo Rifkind in The Times [£]: "The most ridiculous thing about this injunction is not, as some have been arguing, that it is ineffective. In fact, it has been very effective. True, if you are elsewhere in Britain, you could learn the identity of this couple by phoning a friend in Scotland. Certainly, you could browse online and figure it out pretty quickly. Within England and Wales, however, on its own limited terms, the blackout has done the job....The attorney-general Jeremy Wright, meanwhile, has issued a statement warning ordinary British users of social media that they, too, could find themselves in contempt of court for naming names. Although without, of course, saying which names. Collectively, the country has been hushed. With menaces."

Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail on the the three-in-a-bed privacy injection: "Sadly, we can’t even tell you if the olive oil involved was virgin."

Guido Fawkes: "Guido has lots of online embarrassments soon to be discovered on the internet by his Google-savvy young children. As much as he would prefer to cover it all up, this protection would be a risky curtailment of press freedom."

Financial Times political correspondent Henry Mance on a booze filled lunch with Nigel Farage: "For me, this is now entering stag-party territory; for him, it’s little more than holy communion."

David Hepworth in InPublishing on looking what people were reading on a London tube journey:"The most read paper publication was, not surprisingly, the Metro, which is given away free. I saw one man reading The Times, another man reading the Mail and a third reading the Mirror. In each case, they were old enough to require spectacles (which is something that editors and designers should maybe take into account more than they do). I saw two people reading magazines, both of them men. One was reading The Economist, the other Retro Gamer, which was a new one on me. I didn’t see a single woman reading a magazine, which twenty years ago would have been inconceivable."

Stig Abell ‏@StigAbell, who is off to edit the Times Literary Supplement, on Twitter: "My last day at the Sun today. My leaving page is a work of utter genius."

Jeremy Corbyn asked by Andrew Marr if political journalists and newspaper editors should reveal their financial details: “I think we are moving in that direction, I think it’s probably a good thing if we move generally in that direction so everybody knows what influences are at play. I think we need to consider how far it goes, how far it goes to other people involved in public life.”

Tom Harris in the Daily Telegraph: "Government regulation of the press is a bad enough idea. Special new rules for the regulation of individual journalists and their tax affairs would take us beyond Corbyn Labour's admiration for Russian authoritarianism into weird, North Korean totalitarian territory."

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