Former Press Gazette deputy editor Jon Slattery has tracked down our 2005 interview with Andy Coulson, carried out after he picked up newspaper of the year at the British Press Awards.
As far as I know it is the only big interview Coulson has ever done for publication.
Here are the key Coulson quotes Jon has picked out:
“I don’t think tabloid journalists have been top of anyone’s popularity list. But as an industry we spend more of our time beating ourselves up about it than we probably have at any time before. All we ever seem to do is criticise ourselves, and crticise the way we do our job.
“Yet I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, and this goes for everyone on the NoW, in what we do for a living. The readers are the judges, that’s the most important thing. And I think we should be proud of what we do.”
He also told then Press Gazette editor Ian Reeves: “Tabloid newspapers in this country do more for its people than any newspapers in the world. We are connected to our readers in a way that just doesn’t happen in other countries. And that’s something we should celebrate.”
The interview is not on Press Gazette’s online archive, but I will be sticking up pdfs of the relevant pages on this blog tomorrow.
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