Eighty-four per cent said the same about stories which were 'important, but dull'. It's all a migraine of complexity, a slaughterer of attention spans. Let's find something simpler. Here, on reflection, is the ultimate irony. Big corporations employ large, expert teams to hone the news they think that papers and TV stations ought to carry.
News management is a buoyant New Labour growth industry.
But Harry Evans is still right to draw parallels with his own crusade long ago for the victims of thalidomide. That was protracted, expensive, difficult, complicated - and the rest of Fleet Street left it too feebly to the Sunday Times. Editors are paid to guess what their readers want in a highly competitive trade.