Richard and Judy have made an amazing transition from ITV to become

Richard and Judy have made an amazing transition from ITV to become a cult on Channel 4.What is the best thing about your job?Having an hour of Channel 4 News, when most other programmes have half that time. And any general election, because they are such a wonderful televisual process. I went to a boarding school and we were only allowed radio on a Sunday, so that was The Archers omnibus. Forces’ Favourite was good.What’s the first media you turn to in the mornings?Radio 4, 6am, Today I stay with it until 9am.

I read the Financial Times and The Guardian, then The Independent and The Telegraph. I never watch TV in the morning.Do you consult any media sources during the working day?Sky News and BBC News 24. The son of the (later) Bishop of Whitby, he was sent down from Liverpool University in 1970 for skirmishing with a policeman at a demonstration, taught in Uganda and then ran a day centre for young drug addicts before entering journalism. The programme that had the greatest impact was Cathy Come Home – it gave rise to the Shelter charity.

So, what inspired you to embark on a career in the media?I did voluntary service overseas, which made me want to be a journalist. Once you see the world, you want to understand it.When you were 15 years old, which newspaper did your family take, and did you read it?The Daily Mail – I was 15 during the Profumo affair and the Daily Mail was pretty juicy, a 15-year-old’s dream – and The Sunday Times.And what were you favourite TV and radio programmes?Fawlty Towers is the funniest and most revealing one. Since then, Hubble has sent back more than 100,000 images, including pictures last year of ancient galaxies that astronomers believe emerged just 700 million years after the Big Bang, during what is known as the “dark ages of the universe”.. Jon Snow, 57, has presented Channel 4 News since 1989.

We can see the universe as a wonderful creation.”The US Congress and the American Astronomical Society have also backed the idea of further repairs. Rodger Doxsey, head of the US Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates Hubble for Nasa, said last week: “We want to think twice about turning off a telescope that is in its prime.”Servicing Hubble would extend its life to around 2013, well past the anticipated operational date of its replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, in 2011. Mr Bond said, however, that the James Webb telescope would be an infra-red observatory, while Hubble photographs visible light.Hubble requires three of its six gyroscopes to be working to keep it stable; two have already failed and others may follow if it is not repaired. However, its life is limited by its batteries; without servicing they are expected to run out sometime between 2007 and 2008. US scientists have been debating whether any service mission should be conducted by astronauts on the space shuttle or by specially designed robots. A robotic device may be built to guide it into the ocean when it finally falls to Earth.The last planned service by astronauts, the fifth, was scrapped in the wake of the Columbia disaster in 2003.Hubble, named after Edwin Hubble, who first put forward the theory of the expanding universe, was built in 1985 but not launched until 1990.

“It has enabled us to see fantastic images of both the changing seasons on Mars and of fledgling galaxies and stars that are less than a billion years after the Big Bang. The general opinion is that we would like Hubble to continue operating as long as possible, despite the fact that advances in ground-based astronomy mean that we can sometimes gain as much information on Earth as we can from Hubble.”He said Hubble had produced “breakthrough discoveries” in all areas of astronomy. Hubble, meanwhile, will be allowed to gradually run down.However, the issue is still under negotiation and Nasa and the White House have declined to comment officially, but if the decision is confirmed when the budget is agreed next month, it will be greeted with dismay by astronomers worldwide.Peter Bond, spokesman for the Royal Astronomical Society: “Scientists will be disappointed by this It is still producing some tremendous images. But there is another way and that is to pay attention to the legitimate grievance. That’s intervention too.”THE CV Born: 7 December, 1928 in Philadelphia, son of William Chomsky, a Hebrew scholar 1949: Marries linguist Carol Schatz. Three children 1955: Doctorate in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania.