Thursday 18 September 2014

Media Quotes of the Week: From journalists threatened during Scottish independence referendum campaign to print not dead says FT ed


Protest outside BBC Scotland
Paul Holleran, NUJ Scottish organiser, warning journalists were being threatened and intimidated during the Scottish independence referendum campaign:"People have the right to protest if they believe strongly about an issue, however protesters outside the BBC offices in Glasgow this weekend have demanded that journalists be sacked, for allegedly being biased in favour of the union. Journalists in Edinburgh and Aberdeen were abused over the weekend when simply turning up to report on events organised by both sides. Others were on the receiving end of a range of abuse and intolerance on social media, some of which has been logged and maybe reported to the police."

George Monbiot in the Guardian: "Perhaps the most arresting fact about the Scottish referendum is this: that there is no newspaper – local, regional or national, English or Scottish – that supports independence except the Sunday Herald. The Scots who will vote yes have been almost without representation in the media."

Piers Morgan ‏@piersmorgan on Twitter: "Dear People of Scotland, if you vote NO, I promise to go straight back to America. #indyref"

Nick Cohen in The Observer: "British journalists, the supposed tribunes of the people, now hail from wealthier backgrounds than, er, bankers, an awkward fact that ought to cause embarrassment all round. I look at my younger self today and wonder if he could become a journalist on a serious newspaper. My parents were teachers. They were comfortably off by the standards of 1980s Manchester, but they could never have afforded to rent me rooms in London and cover my expenses while I went from internship to internship."

Shane Richmond @shanerichmond on Twitter: "Nice bit of satire in the Observer, placing Nick Cohen’s column about arts and media nepotism opposite a column by Victoria Coren Mitchell."


Michael Woolf on USA Today on Rupert Murdoch: "His embrace of technology is as uncomfortable as it is enthusiastic. Along with his guileless adoption of Twitter, there was the unexpected sight of Murdoch last week at Apple's new product launch, looking like an over-excited kid. He is, after all, an 83-year-old. What distinguishes him in his technological awkwardness is not a resistance to the new, but a poignant sense of the loss of the old."


Newsnight editor Ian Katz in the London Evening Standard on dealing with Jeremy Paxman: “He’s dyspeptic about pretty much everything. Ideas are flattened. Almost everything you suggest Jeremy will think is ‘preposterous’ or ‘infantile’ or an otherwise ‘completely lamentable’ idea, and that’s a challenge because you have to sell it to him.”


Jeremy Paxman on the Guardian's Comment is Free calls for a ban on open-plan offices: "A masterstroke by the buffoons who commissioned the BBC building was to decree that the ordeal be aggravated by refusing to provide either coathangers or waste bins. Within weeks the place was filthy, reeking with a distinctive aroma of wet coats and feet and ancient pot noodles. At one point there was even a goon patrol to check that no one had personalised their workspace with a potted plant. I have never yet met anyone who likes working in an open-plan office."


News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson in a letter to EU competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia about Google: "The shining vision of Google’s founders has been replaced by a cynical management, which offers advertisers impressively precise data about users and content usage, but has been a platform for piracy and the spread of malicious networks, all while driving more traffic and online advertising dollars to Google."


Diane Foley on CNN: 'I really feel our country let Jim down...he was sacrificed because of a lack of coordination, lack of communication, and a lack of prioritisation.'


From the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's website: "The Bureau of Investigative Journalism is asking a European court to rule on whether UK legislation properly protects journalists’ sources and communications from government scrutiny and mass surveillance. The Bureau’s application was filed with the European Court of Human Rights on Friday. If the court rules in favour of the application it will force the UK government to review regulation around the mass collection of communications data. The action follows concerns about the implications to journalists of some of the revelations that have come out of material leaked by Edward Snowden."


Financial Times editor Lionel Barber in the Guardian: “The newspaper is still a very valuable property. We’ve thought very hard about the future of print and we’ve drawn one or two big conclusions. First of all, anybody who said post-dotcom boom that print is dead is wrong. It’s still a valuable advertising proposition.”

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