Parky voices media future 'concerns'

Michael Parkinson has been installed as the new chancellor of Nottingham Trent University and used the occasion to talk about the future of the British media.

Addressing students, the chatshow host said he was "interested and concerned", adding: "This is the future of the media. The young people here are the ones who will give it its shape and its style."

"When you look at the debates going on nowadays about standards, and it's an ongoing debate I know, I have very strong feelings about it," the Press Association quotes him as saying.

"I do think that every so often we should sit down, when there's an occasion offered, and think about what we are promoting, what we are showing on television, what we are printing in newspapers."

He continued: "I don't think the debate about [Russell] Brand and [Jonathan] Ross is catastrophic but it gives us an opportunity to look at where we are going."

Parkinson said he was "honoured" when he was named the first ever chancellor of the university in June.