Media Matters

Bring on the last days of

The BBC’s evening news show has been stuffed ever since Paxo left stephen glover

For as long as I have been a journalist, I have been a regular follower of Newsnight, the BBC’s nightly flagship current-affairs show. God knows how many thousands of hours I have watched, slumped on the sofa, not infrequently with a glass of wine to see me through.

Although, like many of Auntie’s works, sometimes guilty of left-wing bias, the programme was for a long time authoritative and informative. The rot set in when Jeremy Paxman left in 2014 after 25 years as its main presenter. Paxo was often infuriating but he imbued Newsnight with a sense of importance. Grown-up politicians flocked to its studio to be eviscerated.

What a pale shadow of its old self it has become! Government ministers seldom bother to turn up these days. The nightly audience of about 300,000 is much less than half its size 20 years ago. Several of its journalistic so-called experts appear amateurish and jejune.

Now several of its luminaries are abandoning the sinking ship. Its editor of only four years, Esme Wren, has escaped to Channel 4 News, and the queue to replace her is said not to be a long one.

Pugnacious interviewer Emma Barnett has announced that she is leaving Newsnight to concentrate on her duties on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.

Most significantly, Emily Maitlis, who has worked on the programme for 20 years, is departing to join Global, a radio company which broadcasts LBC and Classic FM. She will be paid megabucks to launch an ‘innovative’ podcast with her friend Jon Sopel, also turning his back on the BBC.

Maitlis is a controversial figure, whose left-wing inclinations are occasionally illuminated by anti-Government tirades on air and outspoken tweets.

Her departure is nonetheless a blow to the Beeb. If Newsnight’s mainstay can walk away from a salary of £330,000 for a better-paid though seemingly more obscure job on radio, what does that say about Auntie’s leading current-affairs programme? Kirsty Wark, a presenter for nearly 30 years, who also leans to the Left, remains to hold the fort, in the company of a bevy of part-timers.

To be fair, one or two of these are impressive. Mark Urban, Newsnight’s veteran diplomatic editor, is sometimes given a turn in the main role, where he is calm, knowledgeable and fair. I admire too the programme’s irrepressible political editor, Nick Watt, who fearlessly beards ministers as they walk up Whitehall. A former Guardian journalist, he betrays little or no political bias, and appears to have excellent Government sources.

Nonetheless, the general impression is one of a programme in its death throes which deserves to be put out of its misery. The BBC has reportedly considered addressing this, though in public it remains loyal.

At a recent staff meeting, Jonathan Munro, the BBC’s interim director of news and current affairs, attempted to scotch rumours of impending closure, and rather implausibly assured journalists that the show is in great shape. If so, why are people, from its editor downwards, so anxious to leave?

That the BBC should have a nightly current-affairs show can hardly be doubted. Oldie-readers may recall Tonight and its formidable anchor, Cliff Michelmore. It was eventually considered tired and dated, and along came Newsnight. Now Newsnight’s turn to be replaced has come. The BBC should launch a new current-affairs programme in which it believes, and which it is prepared to back with adequate resources.

It will need a heavyweight presenter, the absence of which has hobbled Newsnight since Paxo left. Maitlis never succeeded in fulfilling that role. The irony is that there was one BBC journalist who could have done so – Andrew Neil.

Unfortunately, he was confined to late-night or midday programmes because he was considered right-wing, and therefore in Auntie’s eyes not entirely reliable. In fact, he was forensic, well informed – and never partisan.

Alas, that ship has sailed. As Newsnight is left flailing without a respected anchor, Neil has signed a deal to present ten Sunday-evening currentaffairs shows for Channel 4. Very possibly there will be more. I hope so. Those of us who have depended on Newsnight are being forced to look elsewhere.

I may have been premature in suggesting that GB News – whose short-lived first chairman and star presenter was the aforementioned Andrew Neil – was heading full pelt for the knacker’s yard.

According to Barb (the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board), GB News was watched by slightly more people in December than in October, though the audience is still small.

Journalists should not kick rival media organisations when they are down. Nick Robinson of the BBC’s Today programme on Radio 4 does not observe this convention.

When interviewing the creator of the online channel Big Jet TV, which attracted 238,000 viewers with films of planes landing in high winds at Heathrow Airport, Robinson remarked that ‘they dream of that at GB News’.

My advice is not to write off the new channel quite yet.