On Newsnight last night...an outside broadcast is sabotaged by an 'imbecile' as Paxman describes him.

Jeremy Paxman is a legendary tosser to me. His voice is one big sneer. Yes, politicians need to be held to account and questioned thoroughly but he treats the whole lots of them with contempt, no matter who they are.

Also, this whole 'how dare anyone disrupt a live tv broadcast' is arrogance.

david wrote:
Yes, politicians need to be held to account and questioned thoroughly but he treats the whole lots of them with contempt, no matter who they are.



Isn't that what he's supposed to do?

yes, but everyone he interviews is greeted with a sneer.

david wrote:
yes, but everyone he interviews is greeted with a sneer.

Well admittedly he'll never get get to front the One Show. But I'd sooner have sneering at politicians than arse licking. If Paxman gets under their skin than as far as I'm concerned he's doing his job well. Or perhaps you'd prefer the cuddly GMTV approach?

The Fat Controller wrote:
david wrote:
yes, but everyone he interviews is greeted with a sneer.

Well admittedly he'll never get to front the One Show. But I'd sooner have sneering at politicians than arse licking. If Paxman gets under their skin than as far as I'm concerned he's doing his job well. Or perhaps you'd prefer the cuddly GMTV approach?

I disagree. If I were a newly elected politician with no negative baggage, and was interviewed by Paxman, I would be greeted when I arrived with a sneer even though I had done nothing wrong. Yes there have been plenty of scandals of late but that is not a reason to treat every politician with contempt.

Much tho I dislike politicians these days, journalists do not allow them to say they are wrong, and then have a go at them for being just that.

We'll have to agree to disagree David. Paxman's job isn't to make those in charge or those who want to be in charge feel comfortable. If they don't like the heat etc'..

There are times when I'm glad Paxman's there, but his problem is he's not as clever as he thinks he is. (It was ever thus: notoriously as a student at St Catz at Cambridge he sat on the steps facing the court, put his head in his hands and moaned, 'Where are all the CLEVER people?') What really disappointed me was when, a few years ago, he claimed his standard approach to interviewing is to ask himself, 'Why is this person lying to me?' Now, that's just chronic scepticism mistaken for shrewdness. It'll pay off sometimes in a 'monkey at a typewriter' sort of way, but, really Jeremy, it's not big and it's not clever!