Three minutes after ten is the time, and you are listening to James O'Brien on LBC.

I suppose we should start with the May I call, shouldn't we?

We should start with the reasons why we didn't do more on it.

And I think I know why.

I read private eye religiously.

Every fortnight, I'm a subscriber, so it drops through my letterbox in a plain white envelope.

And few things bring me more of a frisson of anticipation. night. I'm a subscriber, so it drops through my letterbox in a plain white envelope. And

few things bring me more of a frisson of anticipation than the arrival of what is pound

for pound, by far the finest journalistic outlet in this country. Also, it's largely

free of comment journalism. It's basically jokes and revelations. Jokes, revelations and Mickey takes. There's a little

bit of comment in there. Of course there is. But if you look at your average organ these days,

I suppose with the exception of the of the economist, it's wall to wall opinion. It's slightly

odd position for me to take, given that my job is basically offering you my opinions every morning

and canvassing yours.

But in terms of the, in terms of the sort of wider vista of media outlets, in the course of our

lives, the segue, the shift from being largely news-led and news-driven, which is expensive,

it's expensive to do news, to being opinion-led and opinion-driven, is quite spectacular.

It's one of those things you don't really notice until you take a moment to step back from

the fray and just consider how much things have changed. Younger people, looking at a young colleague now,

will be unaware of the days when the news agenda was dominated by news,

rather than by opinions, rather than by arguments.

Everywhere from, you know, the BBC onwards,

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