A weekly roundup of media news, sans effort

Quote of the week

“If I was paying someone to write something because I want it to get advertising, that’s not a real authentic way of presenting copy. When somebody writes something for us, we know it’s real, we know they want to write it. It’s not been forced or paid for. I think that’s something to be proud of.??? Stephen Hull, editor in chief of HuffPost UK, rather controversially answering the question of why Huffington Post doesn’t pay 13,000 contributors.

Weekly High

The FBI have put in a request for assistance in unlocking an iPhone believed to contain evidence relating to December’s San Bernardino shooting, because they can’t access the data inside. Put simply, then, this is proof that Apple’s best-selling mobile is probably one of the most secure places for your confidential and sensitive information to be stored. Not bad in terms of good press for the brand.

Weekly Low

We’re not entirely sure what ASDA was thinking this week when the supermarket giant decided to remove food bank donation points from its UK stores, but unsurprisingly the public weren’t very happy about the news. Nothing else to say about this really, other than #PRFail.

Stories To Keep An Eye On

Words By Women is a new awards set up in response to the furore over the lack of female representation in the Press Awards shortlist, which will recognise good writing by girls and ladies.

More signs we might be living in the future- HSBC and First Direct are rolling out fingerprint recognition as a replacement for passwords on their iOS apps.  

Just in case you missed it

This week we’ve been looking at some examples of what not to do in travel PR, and listing some of the funniest Facebook Pages and Twitter feeds to help everyone de-stress.