Looks like they really are having difficulty getting anyone on Newsnight these days…

See Recess Monkey’s Newsnight Interview on Guynews.

Well the live interview was definitely a mistake and against my better judgement, as was the in-the-shadows idea of the Newsnight editor, but nice to have Sir Michael White go to full-frontal-abuse.

His denial of knowing his friend Prescott was even 68 is contradicted here

Interviewing Prezza for the Guardian on the 10.05 out of King’s Cross yesterday I was startled, not for the first time, by his resillient energy. It was his 68th birthday, which makes him eight years older than me and a good deal more energetic. Why hasn’t he got any white hair, I found myself wondering? What’s his secret? Pauline’s cooking? Grecian 2000? Tracey? Croquet? A zeal for the public good?

Incidentally – want to clarify something immediately re Nick Robinson – that last line about Nick being the source, did not mean he was the source for the original much contested Guido “email” second system story. Nick has never been a source. We had a discussion re the Ruth Turner document after doing his interview. That was what the reference was to, pretty sure that came over all wrong, and genuinely apologise for any embarrassment caused to Nick. Good night.

Nick Robinson regrets speaking to Guido, well that may be, he probably won’t give Guido an interview again. Bovvered.

Guido occasionally gets calls from producers asking him to go on TV and turns them down. Newsnight have tried a few times without success. But they finally made Guido an offer he couldn’t refuse, his own production team, a free hand with the script and five minutes of prime time to do whatever he wanted. So despite never wanting to get his face on TV, Guido decided to take on our political broadcasters; Nick Robinson, Adam Boulton and Paxman. Crick’s old job is up for grabs after all…

The piece is online here. Now the editors have moved the goalposts and want a studio discussion as well. Sir Michael White will be defending the cosy lobby system, Paxman will be back to asking rather answering the questions. What do you think? Stay in the shadows or do battle with Sir Michael? Vote using the box in the middle column.

Left-wing broadcaster Michael Crick is taking over as political editor on Newsnight. Which means the nation’s prime current affairs show will be short a campaigning investigative reporter. Hmmm…

Tonight he is taking a look at Ronnie Cohen’s generosity. Crick is brilliant isn’t he, where does he get his story ideas?

There was consternation in many places over last week’s reporting by the BBC of Ruth Turner’s arrest. Many thought that Newsnight in particular messed up the priorities with a Michael Crick story on a Tory using the word “cripple” in an email as the lead item. Guido agreed and on Saturday emailed Newsnight’s editor Peter Barron:

Guido,

On Newsnight we don’t necessarily stick to linear running orders which reflect the relative significance of stories in the same way that news bulletins tend to. The loans for peerages story was of course more significant, but there were other factors at play. We had committed Michael Crick to following David Cameron’s efforts to relaunch his campaign in the North. While covering that he came across the “cripple” email story, which was an exclusive and highly pertinent to the Conservatives’ attempts to portray themselves as a compassionate party of government. It followed and mirrored the biggest controversy and talking point of the week which concerned the use of un-PC language in Big Brother. The loans story had been reported in some detail on the 10 O’clock News and on Newsnight we considered that our version could not be substantially different given the information we had at that point. We therefore decided to lead off on our own original story and to run the loans story prominently in second place. You could actually argue that in terms of global significance it was our third story – about China and star wars – which was the most important of the three.

Guido gets the impression that they were committed to the Crick story, when Ruth got arrested they didn’t want to bin the Crick footage. A misjudgement. A nothing story, about a nobody versus the arrest of the PM’s aide? This could lead to a crisis of Watergate proportions and surely deserves serious treatment by the nation’s prime serious news show. What were they thinking?

UPDATE : Peter Barron blogs “I don’t rule out the possibility that it was simply a misjudgement.” Quite.