Friday 7 February 2014

Media Quotes of the Week: From Hope monsters Le President to Grey Cardigan savages Newsquest


Christopher Hope of the Daily Telegraph  to President Hollande: "Monsieur le President, I know this is a very sensitive subject for you. Do you think your private life has made France an international joke, are you still having an affair with Julie Gayet and do you wish she was here?"


News UK boss Mike Darcey on MailOnline, as quoted by Press Gazette: "It shouldn’t be confused with a business based on professional journalism ... It is largely a redistributor, rather than a generator, copying and re-writing content from social media sites, and from other traditional news outlets, including The Sun. And of course the focus is on a genre of content which is unlikely to be holding our politicians to account. So it’s not a model that 11 UK national newspapers can all follow while seeking to preserve their purpose.”


on Twitter: "Sadly Sky has not invited me to any celebrations. Guess Rupert Murdoch told them to erase me from Sky's history. Well, I only launched it!"



The Sunday Times [£] in a leader on David Hunt, the crime boss it exposed: "Even where corruption has not stood in the way of convicting those like Mr Hunt, the police have all too often been content to target the “low hanging fruit” of criminal operations — the drug couriers, dealers and other foot soldiers — rather than the much tougher task of pursuing gangland bosses. As John O’Connor, a former commander of Scotland Yard’s flying squad, puts it: “They have not been doing the nitty-gritty stuff which takes lots of resources. The hope has to be that this will change and that the new National Crime Agency (NCA) will bring Mr Hunt to justice in a way that the Met and Soca failed to do. “Someone like David Hunt is always going to be of interest to us,” the NCA said in a statement. We await developments."



: "Shocked to report that No10's commiserations must - must - have got lost in the post. On the other hand....

"A better reflection of No10's view might be Craig Oliver's text to - 'Could this be the start of a beautiful new relationship'.

: "Honourable mentions: lovely letters from Vince Cable & Ed Miliband. Rather sweet given the pounding they took(especially Vince)."


Adam Boulton in the Guardian: "I love Jon Snow, he has been a mentor of mine, but you do sometimes wonder how many presenters they can cram into their [Channel 4 News] studio. I saw Jon at a summit, he was reporting on his own. I said, 'it's nice to see you without the muppets'. It's not that the individuals are muppets, it's that idea of the big figure surrounded by a whole load of other figures all fighting over the autocue. I think it's Jon's show."


Michael Wolff in USA Today: "Journalists don't like advertising. It is both the corrupting influence and the hard taskmaster, to which they always dream of being free. But save for a few rare instances where information is so valuable or beloved that customers will pay for it, advertising is the only thing that has ever paid the news bill. We don't need journalists solving the problem of news. We need people with far more cunning and inventive commercial minds. But there are few of those."



on Twitter: "What if all journalists were gagged? . With in London thinking of colleagues in ."


Alex Stevenson of Index on Censorship: "What’s at stake here is simple: the ability of journalists to protect their sources. This is critical. Without it confidence in journalism is undermined and fewer whistleblowers will come forward in the future. This is why the government’s latest bid to make life harder for Britain’s hacks – coming so soon after the gagging bill – is so very deeply worrying.
The plans effectively scrap legal guarantees that journalists’ lawyers can contest “production orders” demanding the surrender of key documents. The measure forms part of the coalition’s deregulation bill."


on Twitter: "SallyBercow wants the media to 'leave me alone'. This the same witless woman who went in the Celeb Big Brother House."



Grey Cardigan on The Spin Alley: "SADLY, we have grown accustomed in recent years to seeing arrogant and uncaring newspaper managements shifting subbing jobs from individual newspapers to centralised production hubs. These faceless fuckwits take no account of the ruined careers and wrecked marriages left behind; their sole concern is the bottom line and the size of their next bonus. Want to keep your job? Well it’s moving to the other side of the country. Put your house on the market, find new schools for your children, tell your wife that she’s moving away from friends and family, and all because of a single stroke of a beancounter’s ballpoint. The latest victims of this pointless pogrom are 29 subs on Newsquest’s titles in Darlington, York and Bradford, whose jobs are moving 270 miles away from York to Newport in South Wales. Now we’re not talking about a bundle of nondescript weekly freesheets here which can no longer sustain their own staffs. Included in the cull are 11 subs from the Northern Echo, by anybody’s standards a ‘proper’ newspaper. Founded in 1870, it is a paragon of the provincial Press and numbers Sir Harry Evans amongst its former editors. And at the heart of this very individual newspaper are its subs, a fount of local knowledge and finely attuned to the needs of the readership."

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