Ofcom's ruling on Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand will only hurt the BBC

Following last year's furore, the media watchdog Ofcom has fined the BBC £150,000 for Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross.

So at a time of financial hardship, one of our best television channels, which runs one of the most visited websites by British surfers has had its budget further cut.

Thousands of jobs are being shed across the media, and I am concerned that fining the BBC for the actions of a handful of people will have a drastic effect on program quality and staff numbers.

I feel that there needs to be a reexamination of the way Ofcom penalises the media, and was glad to heard Justice Secretary Jack Straw suggest that perhaps the wealthy Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand might like to pay the fine.

Sadly, some in the media support Ofcom's decision.

While the media watchdog's ruling is hard to dispute, it is the nature of the punishment which concerns me.

The BBC is sometimes accused of being less than impartial, but it is one of the most important media and part of British life.

If jobs are lost because of a punative fine, then we will all suffer.

I was surprised, however, to see that Jack Straw did not call for the salaries of well-paid presenters to be reduced in a time of economic hardship.

Defenders of the large salaries that some BBC presenters get seem to believe that they only do it for the money.

Would Jonathan Ross refuse to present his radio show if he was "only" paid £1 million a year? Surely he loves his job?

Sir Terry Wogan says that his £800,000 salary only costs each licence payer 15p per year, however this is a conservative view only taking account of how much people are paying to fund the BBC.

If his salary was cut to £200,000, how much of that £600,000 could be used to hire extra staff to improve the BBC's online output or to invest in quality drama?

I would like to see a BBC where presenters don't get paid twenty times more than frontline staff, and where drama and comedy is produced to rival HBO.

I am sick and tired of press coverage being given over to American drama such as The Wire (now on BBC2)while British dramas get lukewarm response.

Ofcom need to rethink their penalisation of British media to ensure that quality is not further reduced, otherwise we will get more guff like Liz Jones' latest offering.

There are some interesting points in the second half of the piece, but the first begins with a tedious rant on the dress sense and leisure of "crusties".

The men wear multi-coloured threads around their wrists. The women never wear make-up; instead, they wear droopy home-dyed skirts and cardies made of boiled wool. They each have millions of children who run around unfettered.

How dare people not wear makeup (which costs money, like the mobile phones mentioned in the story). How dare people not wear the latest High Street Fashions and buy Prada handbags like Liz Jones has (and mentions she has in the column).

Oh, and women weren't able to wear the right kind of clothes (meaning clothes Liz Jones approves of) before Sex and The City came along, and Liz Jones doesn't like what Zara Philips wears.

If we allow the standard of journalism to decline, more drivel such as this will become the norm.

I do not want to turn on the BBC in four years' time and hear a discussion on the dress sense of anticapitalist protestors during the news.