Working as a journalist has always had its hazards. Follow the story and you may find yourself in some uncomfortable places, overrun with disagreeable people, threatening dreadful fates, like being incarcerated simply for trying to do your job.

Still, many of us seem to think journalism, particularly if you can appear on television or command space in the national print media, infinitely preferable to having to lecture students, many no longer from the intellectually-bright, native English speaking cohorts of yesteryear, and with tenure uncertain and university salaries ever more closely under scrutiny by the vice-chancellor’s budgetary controller.