Trying too hard on things that don't matter. Ian Katz and his top team clearly spend quite some time every day seeking visual excitement for Newsnight, and lack judgement on quality, impact and value. It may be fun charging round Plumpton looking for a giant conservatory to make a one-off sight gag, but I worry about the man-hours and hire charges spent lighting the thing and de-rigging. It even failed to stimulate Paxo at the start, and I feel sure we'd have got a more forensic Damian McBride interview in a more conventional setting. Later in the same show, Mark Urban, left in London, was standing in the worst virtual reality set I've seen on screen, getting nowhere near explaining what was happening in the Westgate Mall in Nairobi.
The conservatory set came after the pipes and
mock vote on the Union Bridge, hosted by Kirsty Wark. It feels like the early days of Nationwide, when young tyro producers would vy with each other to get the biggest piece of meaningless kit into the lifts at Lime Grove to put on the set for some bootless item - tanks, elephants, dead trees etc.
Strong interviews, well-made films and inventively-cast discussions are what makes a good Newsnight. Forget the
slash and
glitter, please.
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