If Jeremy Paxman were an animal, he’d be a Rotweiler. All teeth and determination and almost no inclination to discern between friend and foe, between a rat and the neighbour’s poodle. While the BBC’s Grand Inquisitor may rail against what he regards as the dissimulation and evasiveness of our politicians, no one, in the last five years, has done more to corrode the quality of political discourse than he.

Good interviewers look for questions that illuminate the issues; but Paxman has become increasingly Pharisaic, seeking too often merely to entrap and bewilder.

Why open his pre-election interview with the leader of the SNP by asking whether he would prefer Michael Howard or Tony Blair to win the election - except to throw him off guard? Why ask George Galloway, after his extraordinary victory in Bethnal Green, “Are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in Parliament?” - as if anyone in their right mind believed that Galloway’s motive for standing had anything to do with the gender or colour of the other candidates…

Moreover, Paxman’s insistence on ‘yes/no’ answers is further cramping the ability of politicians to explore the complexity of issues. So, does Tony Blair, or more recently Charles Clarke, care about the widening gap between rich and poor? Yes or no? If they say ‘yes’, Paxman will ask them why that gap is widening – at least between the very rich and the poor. If they say ‘no’, he will accuse them of not caring about the poor. But the key issue for the Government is not whether some people are getting very, very rich but whether more people have the opportunity to flourish.

The BBC’s failure to curb Paxman, combined with the recent planting of hecklers at one of Michael Howard’s pre-election speeches and at an anti-war religious service all suggest that our most important mass medium of information and debate is becoming more interested in creating drama than intelligently exploring the important issues of our time.

Jesus, of course, was no stranger to confrontational, point-scoring interviewers. He handled them with an intellectual agility that we applaud but also sometimes with a brutal directness that most Christians would hesitate to deploy – “white-washed tombs”, “brood of vipers”. In seeking to restore productive public discourse, what tactics, I wonder, should we employ? Any answers, Jeremy?

Mark Greene

additional resources

Jeremy Paxman's official BBC biog is at www.bbc.co.uk.

The infamous spat with 'Gorgeous' George Galloway can be viewed here, at www.bbc.co.uk.

'I hate the word sneering. I can't help how my face looks. One has to bear in mind that people have voted for even the most humble backbencher. No one has ever voted for me. So sneering is not something I'm happy or comfortable about when people use it to describe me. Incredulity, scepticism maybe. But sneering I don't like.' Jeremy Paxman, The Independent, 5 April 97

'BBC and the "Paxman Problem"' by Roger Mosey, the BBC's head of television news. This article was written during the controversy about the Paxman's interviews with the three party leaders prior to the election. Again, at www.bbc.co.uk.

In a rare interview for NewsWatch, Jeremy Paxman talks about his interviewing style, complaints and why he can't help the way he looks... 'I'm Only Human Says Paxman'.

'Tory Anger At Hecklers' at www.mediauk.com.

'BBC Accused of Planting Hecklers' at www.aim.org (Accuracy in Media).