Slipping through our fingers?
Yesterday Peter Horrocks head of BBC News gave a lecture at St Anne's College on the future of BBC News - or as he sees it the future of BBC Newses - with increasingly fragmenting audiences many of whom (the young, minorities and C2s are increasingly turning away from the BBC). The idea of journalists being able to tell people what to think has gone. Instead he says

Any power we once had to tell the audience what to think has evaporated...Our power to instruct the public is slipping through broadcasters' fingers

His concern is in a world where we increasingly choose the news we want to hear (see Helen Boaden's quote last week) it becomes increasingly important for the BBC to be able to remain telling people about stories they might not hear otherwise.

This is a link to Peter Horrocks's full speech http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/11/the_future_of_news.html. Will post more on this later...