Thursday 22 May 2014

Media Quotes of the Week: From Times reporter shot in Syria to pit bull spin doctor bites Guardian



Anthony Lloyd in the The Times [£] on being beaten up and shot in Syria: "I was covered in blood and lying on the ground when Hakim walked up. He was white with rage. His double cross had failed, and now he had to contend with a questioning crowd. 'I thought you were my friend,' I told him. 'No friends,' he replied, pulling his pistol and shooting me twice in the ankle just to have the satisfaction of crippling me...He may have beaten us and hurt us, but his greatest crime was to rob from his own people. Our entire documentation of a week’s work in Aleppo — notebooks, cameras, video — was stolen by his men. The voices of decent, innocent Syrians struggling for life amid abysmal conditions were stolen by Hakim in his bid for personal profit, making him guilty of a crime far worse than abduction with violence."


Tony Gallagher ‏@gallaghereditor  on Twitter: "Hello @BBCNews - is there any reason you are not crediting Prince Charles story to the Daily Mail? Just asking...You appeared to know nothing about it until Jeremy Paxman started waving it about on @BBCNewsnight"


Ray Snoddy on Jason Selkin and the Telegraph in InPublishing:"Many people have also noticed that Jason Seiken’s speeches have been heavy on digital optimism and talk of new eras in journalism and very light on details on where exactly the new digital revenues are going to come from. It may take more than releasing drones at conferences and talking about virtual reality glasses to convince either Murdoch McLennan, or rather more importantly Aidan Barclay, that he knows where the digital pot of gold is to be found."


Charles Moore, in The Spectator: "It is a strange thing that the current media culture, though obsessed by the idea of the ‘brand’, does not recognise that editors and titles are by far the strongest known form of branding in publishing. The trick is to find the best way of expressing this digitally, not to abolish it."


Janice Turner in The Times [£] on the Paxman Burlusconi interview:  "This was Spitting Image TV —an encounter between two cartoonish figures for public hilarity. Let’s gawp at Berlusconi’s hairline or revel in his Tony Soprano charm. Forget his corruption and sex crimes while we titter again at a crude slight against a woman who makes him look a political dwarf."


Clive James ending his final tv review column for the Telegraph: "This will be my last column. With what energy I have left to me I hope to write a book or two. If I manage to, they will be books peppered with things I learned from watching television, so I have lost no time in doing so. And was it fun? Yes indeed."


Wayne Rooney ‏@WayneRooney on Twitter: "Disgusting that English press have flew out to Portugal to follow me while I'm with my children."


David Hepworth in the Guardian: "Magazines were once a two revenue stream business. You got money from advertisers and readers. Successful publishing depended on holding the balance between the two. This delicate equipoise has gone. As cover price revenue either declines or refuses to grow then the bulk of the money that pays your salary comes from advertisers, sponsors and commercial partners.


Grey Cardigan on TheSpinAlley: "IT HAS not escaped my notice that the big winners at the Regional Press Awards this week were family-owned newspapers. The weekly Cumberland News and daily Carlisle News & Star, owned by the Burgess family’s CN Group, both won Newspaper of the Year in their categories while the Express & Star, Wolverhampton, owned by the Graham family, won Newspaper of the Year in the ‘above 25,000 daily’ sector.  It’s obvious, really, Newspapers in which owners have an emotional and caring bond will always fare better than remote titles on a conglomerate’s balance sheet, bullied and battered at a stroke of a beancounter’s quill."


Johnston Press chief Ashley Highfield, speaking at the Newspaper Society, as reported by HoldTheFrontPage: “I suggest now is the time for Auntie to put on some different spectacles and start looking at local press differently: as a genuine partner to take the BBC to a wider audience. Local newspapers and their associated web brands can actually bolster the BBC’s value if they stop viewing us as the competition and work with us to distribute their content."


Les Hinton ‏@leshinton on Twitter: "Firing someone then publicly pillorying them? Not a good look.@nytimes #jillabramson


Richard Caseby, ex-Sun managing editor and currently director of communications at Iain Duncan Smith's Department for Work and Pensions in a guest blog on Press Gazette:
"Should the new IPSO members accept Mr Rusbridger as a johnny-come-lately? No, rather he should be blackballed. Sorry, but the Guardian isn't fit to become a member of IPSO until it starts valuing accuracy." 

Michael White on Caseby in the Guardian: "Having a smart tabloid man in place to educate the public may be intelligent politics. But not one who picks pub brawls off duty, surely? Time for IDS to have a quiet word with his pit bull and explain – yet again – that the public interest is not the same as what the public may be interested in."

[£] = Paywall

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