Jeremy Paxman: You don’t need to be a weather man to know which way the wind blows.
Jeremy Paxman is one of the most famous and respected TV News journalists on British television.
He is also acerbic, often impatient with question-dodging politicians and he doesn’t stand fools – or foolish ideas – gladly.
He also has a quite devastating sense of humour.
So, when his BBC bosses decided that its flagship news programme Newsnight should have a weather report, a deeply unimpressed Paxman made sure they regretted forcing him to read these weather forecasts.
After a few days of Paxman ‘doing the weather’ the whole idea was quietly abandoned.
Still, Paxman does have a nose for other types of weather – and when he talks, people tend to listen, whether they like what he’s saying or not.
Therefore, it was no wonder that, given the fact that the BBC and other British broadcasters only recently have been involved with all kinds of scandals, from rigged phone-in competitions to ‘creative’ editing of TV documentaries, it was Paxman who was asked to give the flagship opening night speech at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival.
No-one was surprised that Paxman used this platform to hammer home some unwelcome home truths.
First he had a go at his own employers, the BBC:
Working for the BBC has always been a bit like living in Stalin’s Russia, with one five-year-plan, one resoundingly empty slogan after another.
Then, he got to the more serious business of condemning the whole medium in its handling of the News:
“In the very crowded world in which television lives, it won’t do to whisper, natter, cogitate or muse,” he told the audience of TV executives. “You have to shout. The need is for constant sensation. The consequence is that reporting now prizes emotion over much else.”
About the recent ‘credibility issues’ the medium had had, he was brief:
“The question we have to ask ourselves is, is there something rotten in the state of television, some systemic sickness, that renders it inherently dishonest?” said Mr Paxman. “But the question behind that one is simply ‘what is television for?’”
Of course, you don’t need to be Jeremy Paxman to see that the more sensational TV thinks it has to become, the less honest, reputable and, as a consequence, the less credible and relevant it will become.
In other words, you can cover the news or you can cover Paris Hilton – but if you ‘do’ the latter, you will inevitably pick up some very nasty diseases too.
(The full Paxman speech you can find here.)
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