Newsnight

:For the CNN programme see NewsNight with Aaron Brown

Interviews

On one famous Newsnight occasion (first broadcast 13 May 1997), in an attempt to extract a truthful answer, Paxman put the same question ("Did you threaten to overrule him?") twelve times to Michael Howard, who until 13 days earlier had been Home Secretary, relating to the sacking of the Head of the Prison Service following a well-publicised jail-break (see below for link to video). Howard evaded the question each time ("I did not overrule him") and never gave a straight answer. This was later revealed to be a stalling strategy by Paxman on being told that the studio was having technical trouble with one of the reports which was to follow. In 2004 Paxman broached the subject with Howard — now Conservative leader — again; Howard laughed the question off, but did say he "didn't" threaten to overrule the Head of the Prison Service. The 1997 exchange has been voted the best Newsnight moment ever by members of the show's production team.

Related Topics:
13 May - 1997 - Michael Howard - 13 days earlier - Home Secretary

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In contrast Newsnight is much weaker when interviewing people not involved in politics. When Paxman interviewed Bill Gates few difficult questions were asked. On 10 August 2005 Mark Lawson interviewed Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the co-inventor of the World Wide Web. Lawson spent much of the interview complaining about pornography and terrorist websites, he even went so far as to ask Berners-Lee if the unsavoury sites cause him sleepless nights. The interview had been trailed as being about the future of the web, yet there was no mention of Wikis, the new Browser war or Creative Commons; only one brief question was asked about the Semantic Web at the end of the interview.

Related Topics:
Bill Gates - 10 August - 2005 - Mark Lawson - Tim Berners-Lee - World Wide Web - Pornography - Terrorist - Wiki - Browser war - Creative Commons - Semantic Web

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