For any blogger there is no greater compliment than the attention of you, the reader. Of course, that would probably be chucked out the window the moment this blog won an award (unlikely) – when, in true journalistic tradition, it would become “an award-winning blog.”

I’ve just come from the Royal Television Society’s journalism awards (I chaired the international current affairs jury – two films on Afghanistan, and one on China). It reminded me what a small, but quintessentially decent, community broadcast news is. (And I’m not even paid to say that anymore.)

Looking back on awards, they tell you little about what is of lasting value – why would they? But at the RTS, and on other occasions, they do make journalists argue about the things they spend their professional lives avoiding, and maybe the public would have a little more respect for their journalism if they voted in secret but debated in public (or perhaps video-streamed those debates online).

There’s a lot of hidden passion in journalism. Perhaps it needs airing more often.