Quotes of the week

It's been a good week for quotes. Here's my pick.

Nick Davies, at the NUJ Jobs Summit, on the public status (or lack of it) of journalists: "Being judged by people on the performance of Murdoch and Dacre is like all Transylvanians being judged on Dracula's behaviour. We have to fight back against it. Our position is similar to that in which gay men and women found themselves in the 1950s and 1960s. They were unable to orchestrate their political strength to change the law because they weren't liked, they were shunned."

Derry Journal NUJ chapel, on proposed job cuts: "The Derry Journal survived the Famine, but we fear it may not survive Johnston Press."

Sly Bailey on Digital Britain interim report: "Frankly time is running out. Regional newspaper publishers are facing the most challenging times in their history, mergers and combinations of newspaper groups offer the only chance of survival for some titles."

Greg Dyke on the influence of the Hutton Report (five years old this week) on the BBC: "On Iraq I don't think the BBC has been brave since then."


BBC director general Mark Thompson on BBC websites linking to Gaza Appeal: "This is a valid decision for news editors to make when reporting that the appeal is happening; as we know that many people will want more information about the appeal or donating to it. Providing them with that information in no way alters the fact that my decision - however controversial - was the correct one to preserve the BBC's impartiality."

Sun editor Rebekah Wade, giving the Hugh Cudlipp Lecture: "Newspaper pessimism is age old, nearly as old as some of the media commentators."

Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie: "I used to have a business in Swansea and decided to make a "seagull visit" - fly in, s*** on the staff and fly back to my London office."

Wade on MacKenzie, answering a question after Hugh Cudlipp Lecture: "He's not allowed in Scotland...or the North."

Headline of the Week: The Sun on the 'Lords for hire' story : 'PEERS MORONS'

Sly Bailey: 'Time is running out...mergers and combinations of newspaper groups offer only chance of survival for some titles'

Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey has given a blistering response to the publication of the interim Digital Britain report, HoldtheFrontPage reports today.
She welcomes the move to review the merger ownership rules (see post below) in the regional newspaper sector but accuses the government of a lack of urgency.
Bailey says: "We, of course, welcome the commitment to investigate the potential for changes to merger regulations in the local and regional media sector. But how long will the process take following the full report in May? One or two years?
"Frankly time is running out. Regional newspaper publishers are facing the most challenging times in their history, mergers and combinations of newspaper groups offer the only chance of survival for some titles. Merger regulations need to change to enable the regional newspaper industry to survive in the digital age, rather than conspiring to strangling it out of existence."
In another broadside, she added: "We are bitterly disappointed that the report makes only passing reference to newspapers - the word is used just four times - and the crushing lack of understanding of the urgency required for changes to merger regulations in the local and regional media sector."