Friday 20 August 2010

Quotes of the Week: From Katie Price to Lefty rain

Katie Price asked by the Guardian if she has read her own books: "What, my autobiographies? No, cos I know what's in them."

Peter Preston in the Observer: "A truly local paper is like a policeman on his beat (or that family doctor). It's what helps local life go around. It opens a world of possibilities. And – golly! – it's more important than 30% profit margins. Or, at least, it damned well should be."

Patrick Smith on his blog remembers when the Tameside Advertiser had its own local office:
"What instantly hit you then about that office – and about every local/regional newspaper operation I’ve seen or worked on – was the connection people felt towards the title. The sense of ownership created a strange mixture of pride and anger when reporters didn’t get something right or were chasing the 'wrong' story. The office front desk secretary would have to deal with queues of people with delivery problems; mothers and grandads asking for re-prints of pictures of smiling brothers and nieces who appeared in the news pages last week, or people with 'a cracking story' about fences or dogshit who demanded to see a reporter right now. All that is gone."

Stephen Glover in the Independent: "Most of us probably have little interest in Mr Montgomerie's private life. Not being a golfer, I have no interest in him whatsoever. What is disquieting is the principle. The idea that a judge such as Mr Justice Eady can issue a 'gagging order' whose very existence cannot even be reported should be disturbing to anyone who believes in a free press."

Roy Greenslade on his MediaGuardian blog about Rupert Murdoch: "Even though I have taken issue with the level of editorial control Murdoch has exercised, I cannot deny a major lesson of press history: single-minded, opinionated, determined entrepreneurs have always been the driving force behind successful newspapers. We may criticise them on the grounds of their threat to press freedom. But then we have to ask: would there be a press without them? Would there be, without Murdoch, The Times in London, the New York Post or The Australian?"

Reporters Without Borders clarifies its crticism of WikiLeaks for publishing the Afghan War Logs: "We reaffirm our support for Wikileaks, its work and its founding principles. It is thanks in large part to Wikileaks that the world has seen the failures of the wars waged by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also thanks to Wikileaks that we have seen how the US army deliberately targeted a Reuters crew in Baghdad in July 2007."

Andrew Sullivan in the Sunday Times on Christopher Hitchens:
"Friendship, in the end, is about the lack of any desire to change another person. It is about loving him as he is. And in that love there is the only human redemption and, in my view, the true intimation of the divine. That love, I feel sure, will survive him. And me. For it is connected to something greater than both of us."

Keith Hodgkinson in a letter to the Guardian: "It seems that even the weather maps are political these days. In the Telegraph the rain falls to the right, while in the Guardian it goes to the left."

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