Jim Gray, formerly of Newsnight, presides over Channel 4 News. And Google‘s Peter Barron formerly of Newsnight, formerly of Channel 4 News, formerly of Newsnight leaves an empty editor’s chair. Wouldn’t Gray be the best person to fill it?
And the fact that Gray would not for one moment take that seriously, tells you everything you need to know about which is the better job in telly.
One is an opportunity to make programmes with a man who lives, eats and breathes news, reporting to a single, largely satisfied customer.
Another is an opportunity to navigate the highways of the BBC hierarchy and the backwaters of its bureaucracy, alongside a trio of capable presenters who live, like the editor, in the sulphurous shadow of an exhausted, Snow-capped volcano. Mount Paxman.
Newsnight is not really a programme in search of an editor, despite the vacancy. It is a programme in search of a presenter: a single, hungry individual to drive it on the way Jon Snow drives Channel 4 News. A televisual version – perhaps – of the excellent Eddie Mair.
You know, of course, that waiting in the wings like Prince Charles, is Jeremy Vine. Is Vine the man to demand to be on air five nights a week? If he is, then the job is surely his. And yet, it feels like giving the job to a Paxman tribute band. And is Vine still hungry? He’s a success in his own right, and presenting Newsnight might feel like a backward step.
For a programme without much money, the hunger is important. In the US anchors have to be dragged screaming from the screens. Here in the UK, Sky‘s Adam Boulton is the nearest you see to an old-fashioned air hog, but – no – he’s not Newsnight.
Would Matt Frei up sticks from Washington DC, still the political centre of the world, for Westminster village life? Not big enough behind a chair yet.
In fact the only broadcaster I can think of with the presentorial hubris, aggression and self-possession to make Newsnight compelling again – perhaps in a ghastly kind of way – is (sorry, kick me) Nicky Campbell. I know. Should have kept it to myself.
In the meantime the editorship of Newsnight offers prospects for three types of editor:
1) The Rod Liddle-style maverick (Eddie Morgan perhaps)
2) The George Entwistle-style steady hand (any former BBC trainee)
3) The Peter Barron-style frustrated reformer (Peter Barron)
Which are you?