Broadcasters or politicians or writers who think that they are respecting Struggle Street the battlers by dumbing things down into one-line sound bites are not respecting them they are treating them with contempt. It's our job above all in politics to tackle the big issues and to explain them.

That test should not be about ratings. What should weigh is the knowledge that a public broadcaster delivers programmes that matter.

Television of course actually started in Britain in 1936 and it was a monopoly and there was only one broadcaster and it operated on a license which is not the same as a government grant.

The number one lobby that opposes campaign finance reform in the United States is the National Association of Broadcasters.

The world is a crazy beautiful ugly complicated place and it keeps moving on from crisis to strangeness to beauty to weirdness to tragedy. The caravan keeps moving on and the job of the longform writer or filmmaker or radio broadcaster is to stop - is to pause - and when the caravan goes away that's when this stuff comes.