Anyway, down the pub on Friday night someone at work noticed that they had seen Guido Fawkes, he of the most successful political blog in human memory, doing a piece on Newsnight. This seemed weird - a bit like if Bob Harris had invited the Sex Pistols into the Old Grey Whistle Test studio to do 'Anarchy in the UK' in 1976. But as Guido says on his blog, they gave him his own slot last Wednesday, with 5 minutes of airtime and a free hand over the content so he couldn't say no. The piece is on the BBC website. It's introduced with a rather snotty remark by Paxman (there's rarely any other kind of Jeremy Paxman remark of course) saying that 'Mr Fawkes insisted on concealing his true identity for this programme, despite the fact that his true identity is discoverable in two mouse clicks on the internet.' Well yes, but surely it's considerably more fun for both the viewers and for Guido if he isn't unmasked straightaway. Kiss never appeared in public without makeup on for the first few years, and I'm sure Guido is following in Gene Simmons's footsteps on this one.
Guido's basic point in his 5 minutes was that political journalists are too close to their political sources and therefore very rarely say anything interesting or penetrating about politicians as they don't want to rock the boat and get 'frozen out'. An example was given where Dave Cameron refused to speak to Sky News for six months after a rookie reporter pissed him off in an interview. I'd have had more respect for Dave if he'd refused to speak to Sky News ever, on the grounds that it was run by a fascistic oligarch who was trying to singlehandedly subjugate the developed world's media, but maybe Dave will pick up on this next stage of radicalism next month when Zac Goldsmith sends him the new edition of the Ecologist. I think it's true that sometimes relationships between 'the lobby' and the politicians are too cosy. But cases of 'freeze-out' have to be quite isolated, on the basis that the public would get suspicious of any front bench politician, from any party, who refused to give media interviews on a continuous basis. By and large, the politicians need the journalists as much as the journalists need the politicians; the mechanisms for politicians to get their messages across directly are limited (when was the last time any of you watched a party political broadcast for any reasons other than low-grade comedy? Or read a ministerial blog [like MicroBlair's, for example?]) and so, like it or not, they do have to talk to the media every so often. They don't have too much to fear anyway, as (a) they are mostly well-trained in how not to say anything important or career-threatening to interviewers, (b) interviewers like Paxman make it easy for them to get away without saying anything important by not letting them say anything at all; interrupting them constantly, following up their answers with non-sequiturs, etc. (See the Hal post for more on this.)
The second half of the Newsnight piece, where Guido did a live interview with Paxman (in shadow and 'down the line' from Westminster so as to keep his identity secret) was pretty excruciating, sadly. Michael White from The Guardian found reserves of charisma we never knew he had and reduced Mr Fawkes to an argument about whether he (White) had been at John Prescott's 68th birthday. Is this what people are tuning into Newsnight for? Who gives a fawk?
Fair play to Guido for going on the show live - it's probably terrifying - but by his own admission, he's disappointed he didn't manage to kick the cosy British political establishment up the arse a bit harder. I think Peter Hitchens probably made more of an impact with the Dispatches programme on Dave C last Monday - although of course he had 45 minutes (excluding adverts) to do it. I think a Guido Fawkes Dispatches would be a good idea, and hopefully someone from Channel 4 will be reading this and will Do The Right Thing (in between commissioning a documentary about the kid with a bicyle pump in his spine, or a gameshow presented by David Icke, or wherever the goddamn channel is at nowadays.)
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