Friday 25 January 2013

Quotes of the Week: Prince Harry shoots at British press to why not charge readers to comment?











Prince Harry in an ITV News interview slams the British press: “All it does is upset me and anger me that people can get away with writing the stuff they do. My father (Prince Charles) always says don't read it, everyone says don't read it, because it's always rubbish. I'm surprised how many in the UK actually read it.”

Northern Echo editor Peter Barron: "It would have been nice if Prince Harry had resisted getting out his huge tar brush to blacken the entire British press and acknowledged that there are good and bad in every profession - including the armed forces. He might also have acknowledged that on more than one occasion, the British press has been asked in its entirety to keep his deployment to Afghanistan secret - and remained water-tight. Respect has to work both ways."

Leveson lead counsel Robert Jay, speaking at the Singapore Acadmy of Law, as reported by the Guardian:  "My impression is that the press in the UK could well qualify as the most unruly and irreverent in the world, and I have travelled widely; it is fearless, and it speaks its mind. To be described as 'unruly and irreverent' would be regarded by most editors and journalists as a badge of honour, not of aspersion. Many would argue that these qualities make the press in the UK the best in the world, because the dividing line between fearlessness in holding power to account and unruliness in disparaging the rights of private individuals is almost impossible to draw."

David Walsh on Lance Armstrong in the Sunday Times [£]: "I do not expect or want an apology but I would like a third meeting because I have got a lot of questions. Oprah started something three nights ago, a very modest first step on the road to the truth in Armstrong’s story. If he commits himself to the journey, he will be surprised how far he can go."

A sign in Manly Library, Sydney, as quoted by The Australian: "All non-fiction Lance Armstrong titles, including Lance Armstrong: Images of a Champion, The Lance Armstrong Performance Program and Lance Armstrong: World's Greatest Champion, will soon be moved to the fiction section.'' 

Evgeny Lebedev on the Independent in the Sunday Times [£]: “We’ve done a lot of research and worked out that the future of the paper is very upmarket.”

EU report suggests new ways to police the press, as reported by Press Gazette: "Media councils should have real enforcement powers, such as the imposition of fines, orders for printed or broadcast apologies, or removal of journalistic status."

Local World chairman David Montgomery, interviewed in InPublishing about the future for local journalism: “It’s about getting people to organise themselves sufficiently to manage the amount of content a local publisher exploits. Not a two fold increase but a 20-fold increase in the amount of content a local publisher exploits.” 

Tyler Brûlé in the Financial Times: "What about charging people to comment? It used to cost the price of a stamp to send a letter to the editor. I’m quite sure the media landscape would be a tidier, more polite place if everyone was charged a first-class postal fee before firing off poorly researched, occasionally rude remarks."

[£] = paywall

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