Far from wanting to publicise my boss's blog, I must however agree with his point that most television news at the moment is a bit rubbish. In fact, to that you could add most news full stop, including newspapers online and in print. Now I'm no George Orwell but the reason is pretty obvious to me – there's a lot of dodgy journalism knocking about. Some of it you need a degree in journalism to spot, but most of it you blatantly don't.

I'd like to think that Guy Kewney's recent brush with ignominy has discouraged media whores everywhere from setting foot near a reporter, but actually if that happened our papers would be blank and our 24-hour rolling TV coverage devoid of, well, coverage. Given the often impossible time pressures, resource constraints, and frankly, the lack of motivation to do otherwise, a ready supply of folk who give good quotes can be a godsend for those on daily publications.

Of course, there are other methods – a mate of mine (not working at IT Week, I hasten to add) sprinkles made-up quotes liberally into his stories, which is only slightly less ethical than deliberately seeking out a reliable source to round out a story.

By the way, that dull rattling sound you can hear is Mr Orwell slowly revolving in his grave.