I had been at the newspaper for a few months. It wasn’t regarded as the paper, it was their paper. There was a sense of community because they reported, we reported, I reported the little things, the whist drives, the weddings, the funerals, the little speeches. In one sense it was the most boring copy in the world to anyone picking it up, but, on the other hand, it was crucial to the people who lived in those communities.

The democratization of news is fine and splendid, but it's not reporting. It's based on a fragment of information picked up from television or the web, and people are sounding off about something that's not necessarily true.

I often see cases of Internet news where there's no reconciliation for what's gone before and what's newly arrived. That training for me - which was absolutely brutal and I was terrified - was so important, especially later in life when one was faced with conflicting stories and conflicting evidence.

We always talk about how everyone is unifocal. You can't possibly be interested in jazz and Beethoven. Of course you can. You can't both be reading a newspaper and be online. Of course you can. We shouldn't be obsessed with a gun to your head, 'You either read a newspaper or die!'

Some blogs have become the best check on monopoly mainstream journalism, and they provide a surprisingly frequent source of initiative reporting.

When came the invasion of privacy.That kind of thing turns the newspaper from a friendly organ - not necessarily appeasing everybody - into the enemy. It's one reason why newspapers have suffered circulation falls.

It's a fascinating time, I think. I do believe that with all the qualifications I've said - [such as] the uncertain accuracy of the web - nonetheless the access to speeches, documents is unparalleled with the ease of gathering information. If I had had that access when I was an editor or coming up, it would have made my life so much easier. As it was, everything took so much longer.