I AM putting the finishing touches to a short speech that I have to deliver three times in one day next Thursday.

So I thought I would use the column this week for a little bit of a dry run.

It’s difficult to believe I know (judging by the photograph at the top of the page or indeed for any of you who know me) that I will have been working on the Echo for 30 years come this April, twenty-one of them as news editor.

And yesterday I completed my third full year in the combined role of editor and head of news. (How on earth have I managed that, I hear some of you ask?)

I mention these momentous milestones not because I am looking forward to lots of letters and emails of congratulation - of course that is surely a given because I have obviously made lots of friends over the years, not least in the public sector.

No, I mention it because of my subject matter on Thursday.

We’re running a series of digital media seminars for the business community and as an introduction to each one, I’ll be setting the scene from the editorial perspective with an overview of our growing digital audience, page views, unique browsers and returning visitors -and all the other new language we use that were not in use when I walked through the door of the Fountain Building in Christchurch for the first time in April 1988 to take up my new role.

We typed out our copy, tucked it into an envelope and put it on the van that came round three times a day en route to the newsroom on Richmond Hill, where the presses rolled out three editions a day.

When we went out on jobs and reported from the scene of an incident or from court, it was a case of finding a phone box or knocking on someone’s door and asking to use their telephone to file to the copytakers.

Fast forward to now.

Armed with a smart phone, the multi media journalist can send their story by email or text, ping pictures and video back to the newsdesk, push it all out on social media and if there’s time, with their laptop, write directly to the website and onto the page for the next day’s print edition.

On the wall in the newsroom sits a screen telling us how stories are performing in real time, not just our own but across the Newsquest network. It’s a hugely competitive business and sometimes the rivalry is just as fierce internally as it is with competitors outside this publishing business.

The driver of the digital side of things is, in my view, the same as it has always been with the print side. Good stories, quality journalism by professional, fully trained staff who are dedicated and believe in what they do.

While many aspects of the mechanics of publishing a newspaper in the digital age has changed, the foundations of the news business have not, in print and online.

And while I’m on the subject of audience here are a few statistics to take away.

The Echo’s website recorded its highest number of unique browsers in January at more than 1.3 million and more than 12 million views.

Advert over.

+ Preparing the powerpoint presentation to accompany my words for next week gave me an excuse to dust off the photo files and find the picture above of me interviewing a youthful-looking David Cameron, just after he became Prime Minister.

I was prompted to look out an image of me with someone important because my own boss in a previous presentation used one of himself with Theresa May during last year’s ill-fated general election. Meanwhile one of my colleagues, Bill Browne, the esteemed editor of the Salisbury Journal, included a picture of himself with Margaret Thatcher. It was many years ago but to be fair, he was a junior at the time. I interviewed DC on four occasions when he was leader of the opposition and then PM, but this was the most important meeting. He listened intently (as you can see) and nodded as I said to him: “Dave, whatever you, don’t hold a referendum on the EU.