Mission statement
I’ve had a couple of requests for the text Brian used as part of his speech on Saturday. It’s taken from the first in the series of Sky at Night books, and was written not by Patrick but by the first producer, Paul Johnstone. He writes
It has always seemed to me that television is above all a means of communication to a mass audience. That does not mean it should debase subjects or avoid difficult or so-called minority ones. But it is not like a book, where you can re-read a difficult sentence. Nor can it ever replace books as permanent sources of wisdom or knowledge. On the other hand, the combination of immediacy, personality and illustration can impart information more vividly to a wide audience than any book or magazine, provided always that this essential clarity and simplicity is kept.
and I don’t think much has changed since then. Mind you, he also said
One must also mention the dancing girls. We claim happily to be the only serious scientific programme on television which regularly employs dancing girls.
so maybe some things do change!
