They say that death and taxes are the only certain things in this life. I would add BBC bias into that mix.
It was probably about 20 years ago that I first went on Newsnight. In those days Jeremy Paxman ruled the roost and taught me an early lesson in live television. Jeremy asked me my view and I gave it. He then turned to the other guest and duffed him up a bit. I made the mistake of smiling briefly, only for Paxman to turn on me and say something along the lines of: ‘I don’t know what you’re grinning about.’ He then proceeded to duff me up a bit too. Lesson learned.
Back then, when you left the Newsnight studio, your phone would explode. Like Question Time some decades ago, it was must-watch television. (It is hard to think of any programme on terrestrial television any more that could be described as ‘must watch’.) As the years went by, Newsnight – like so many other shows – went from ‘needn’t watch’ to ‘impossible to watch’ to ‘no one watched’. You could go on and your phone would be silent afterwards. Neither friend nor foe tuned in, and guests were left wondering about the tree falling in a forest line.
Yet in recent days I have been doing the media rounds for my latest bestseller (On Democracies and Death Cults – available wherever books are sold, since you ask), and Newsnight asked for an interview. I didn’t have a free evening, so it agreed to a pre-record. For connoisseurs of BBC shittiness, this should have been a warning sign.
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