Here’s the free link to Peter Horrock‘s Oxford talk. Don’t thank me, thank the licence fee.

Actually I did Horrocks a dis-service in my earlier post. What his talk was really about was justifying immense licence fee expenditure in terms of television news.

It’s ironic he blogged his speech, because one of his observations is that “the internet is in danger of becoming an enormous exercise in preaching to the converted.” Keep preaching, I’m not converted. But perhaps I’m making a category error, and we are in fact both members of the small club that concerns itself with “journalism” (48.7 million hits on Google).

Speaking from my own distorted information environment (my new favourite expression), here are some of my favourite bits, with translation provided:

increasing shouts of bias against public broadcasters are more a reflection of the distorted information environment the complainants themselves live in. They are so conditioned to their own shared perspective that they are more inclined than before to see impartiality as bias.

Stop complaining…

Our experience of audiences is that they are remarkably smart at thinking for themselves. It is often politicians and special interest groups that proceed on the basis that the public needs to be protected from powerful views.

Auntie knows best, and can protect you from your polluted democracy!

If more people see the world only through their own prisms then the danger of lack of mutual understanding is even greater.

Perhaps some kind of carefully segmented groupthink might help…

…imagine if Sky, ITN and BBC all disappeared. There would probably be two types of news provision – i) attempts to provide mass news on a low cost base through a narrow range of sensationalist stories produced in a threadbare fashion. And ii) specialist information produced by bloggers and pressure groups to appeal to adherents of particular opinions.

I’ve seen the future…cut to Charlton Heston surveying the ruins of Wood Lane: “DAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!”

Technologies that create fragmentation could end up accentuating divergence and even hatred.

Don’t take off your ipod and chat to the person rocking slowly back and forth on the seat next to you. Watch the news instead.

the need to give serious information of broad appeal is one of the most important purposes the BBC has in the digital era – to get information to audiences who might otherwise never come across it. Indeed if we fail to reach this “lost audience” it is likely that they will have few sources of reputable information to provide a rounded view of the world. Surely failing to meet that obligation would lead to a democratic deficit – for a disengaged and disenfranchised part of society. That would be real dumbing down.

More stories on Richard Hammond and politicians’ kids will increase voter turnout and informed decision-making. But please don’t ask for a democratic BBC governance structure as refusal often offends.