Friday 15 February 2013

Quotes of the Week: From Fleet Street Fox to how knowing Latin got a journalist a worldwide scoop


Susie Boniface (aka Fleet Street Fox) reveals herself in The Times [£]: "It’s funny, my real name, Susie Boniface, has been in papers for 18 years and Fleet Street Fox has been around for five minutes, but she’s better known than I am. Recently someone told me: 'Wow! You’re Fleet Street Fox! If anyone can be trusted, you can.' Very flattering, but it puts a dent in your self-esteem when your creation is more popular than you are. Added to which, my — her — story is about to be read by more strangers than ever. It’s a bit like being married, only she is someone I can’t divorce."

Daily Telegraph in a leader: "Police investigating allegations of newspaper phone hacking yesterday arrested six journalists from the now defunct News of the World as part of Operation Weeting. This means that 106 people are now either awaiting trial or are on bail as a result of three connected inquiries involving 169 detectives and staff. Yet not a single person has been questioned, let alone detained, by police in connection with the deaths of up to 1,200 patients at Stafford Hospital."

Financial Times editor Lionel Barber interviewed in the Guardian:  "News now is not the newspaper, but papers still need a sense of timeliness and relevance, and also urgency – but you don't need to do that through publishing what happened incrementally at 11 o'clock last night in London. It's about sheer good reporting or providing under-reported material, and display can convey urgency."

Barack Obama, from the website celebating `125 years of the Financial Times: "I read the Financial Times before other people read the Financial Times. Now it’s trendy and everybody carries around a Financial Times."  

Matthew Parris in the The Times [£] on the amendement to the Defamation BIll: "The Commons must now consider the amendment, which will have supporters in all parties: many MPs hate journalists, and not without reason. Unless Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg think again, call in the rogue decision their respective tribes took in the Lords and whip through the Commons the overturning of new clause 2, the Government will either have to pull the plug on the whole Libel Bill, or else cave in to the Hacked Off campaign. The first would be a wretched shame. The second would be a catastrophe."

Rupert Murdoch responds to tweet from @Kazipooh claiming page three girls are "so last century!": "Rupert Murdoch  @rupertmurdoch "You maybe right, don't know but considering. Perhaps halfway house with glamorous fashionistas."  

But later adds.. : "So Page 3 tweet is breaking news... Typical OTT reaction by the UK PC crew. Just considering, as we do every page daily Buy it and see....."

 Hacked Off director Brian Cathcart on the Royal Charter plan for press regulation, as reported by BBC News: "All the elements suggest that the press have been given concessions and that the minister has put the interests of the press before the interests of the public."
  
Culture Secretary Maria Miller, as quoted in the Guardian, claims the Royal Charter press regulator: “Would see the toughest press regulation this country has ever seen, without compromising press freedom".”

ANSA journalist Giovanna Chirri who was the first to report the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI thanks to her polished Latin skills: "The pope's Latin is very easy to understand...his resignation didn't seem real to me...I told myself  'you misunderstood'...It made me cry. I fought to keep my nerve despite my knees feeling weak".

[£] = pay wall.

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