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It's summer.

It's one of those times if you're lucky enough to get away.

You sit on a deck chair and you think, what is the meaning of life?

Where am I going?

Why do I do this?

So we thought, because we often get questions on the today podcast about journalism, we should talk about the future of it, what it is, what it means, where it's going. We could just talk about the past as well. I mean, I'm quite nostalgic for the past, even though I wasn't there for some of it. We should start off by saying, well, that's true of all of us. That's true of all of us. You should start by saying what journalism is. Have you worked it out, Nick?

You've only done it for about what's the odd years.

Yeah.

Where do you start?

I mean, one answer to what journalism is, is finding things out that other people don't want you to find out, holding the powerful to account. But that's a bit of it. So informing people about what's going on, applying scrutiny to power and maybe enlightening a culture in the broadest sense. And do you know what we need? We need some fellow podcasters to make sense of this. And I think, I can think of two very good ones. They've got a podcast from Radio 4, BBC Sounds. It's called When It Hits the Fan. And they know a lot about their respective worlds. They know more about their respective words than you and I do. So instead of me saying that you're talking rubbish and you telling me that I'm talking rubbish, they can both tell us that we're both talking rubbish. Just give us a chance. There's one of them. We'll introduce him later. That's the main thing journalism is about speaking out of turn. This is a podcast about the future of journalism.

I think it's fair to say you're going to encounter a diversity, a plurality of views.

Should we do it? Let's do it.

Hello, welcome to this summer edition of the Today podcast.

It's a mole here in the Today Podcast studio.

In case I've never mentioned, I used to be a newspaper editor.

I've got the job in my 20s.

Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear. We're just getting your qualifications to talk on this importance of. I used to be the editor of the independent, which I know annoys a few people. And I was also for six years, the media editor of the BBC. Well, it's Nick here in the Today Podcast Studios. Well, I started as a trainee producer on John Craven's Newsround. One of the first things I did, yeah. Just I had 60 years, 1986, it's long enough ago. So I was a producer for years, produced political programs, deputy editor of Panorama, before I became a political reporter and political editor of the BBC and ITV. And do you know what's going to be cool about this discussion is that we often have a Barney about this off mic.

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