Jeremy Paxman

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Jeremy Dickson Paxman (born 11 May 1950) is an English BBC journalist, news presenter and author. He is most famous for his abrasive and forthright style of interviewing on the BBC's Newsnight programme. Any kind of tough questioning is routinely described as Paxmanesque in recognition of his style.

Paxman is a well-known public figure, nicknamed "Paxo", which is both a contraction of his surname and a popular brand of British stuffing mix.

1 Journalistic career
2 Author
3 University Challenge
4 Trivia
5 References
- 5.1 Footnotes

[edit] Journalistic career

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Paxman was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, and educated at Malvern College. His father, Arthur Paxman, served on the North Atlantic Fleet. His mother, Joan, was a housewife. Paxman is the eldest of four children and has two brothers and one sister, Jenny Lawrence, who works with him at the BBC. He lives with his partner Elizabeth Ann Clough in Stonor, Oxfordshire. They have three children; Jessica, and twins Victoria and Jack.

He read English at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he edited the student newspaper Varsity. His career began on local radio before he moved to Belfast as an investigative journalist. In 1977 Paxman moved to London with the BBC and two years later he transferred to Panorama from the Tonight programme. After five years on that programme, working from locations as diverse as Beirut, Uganda and Central America, he accepted a job presenting the Six O'Clock News, where he was presenter for two years, before moving to the Breakfast Time programme. In 1989 he moved to his current job as presenter of Newsnight. Whilst maintaining his spot fronting that show, his career has diversified into the presentation of a number of television programmes, such as the quiz programme University Challenge and You Decide.

Paxman's line of questioning when interviewing is, conversely, often praised as tough and incisive or criticised as aggressive and irreverent.

In early 1980s he described himself as a socialist when he applied to edit the New Statesman magazine. [1]

One of Paxman's most famous Newsnight interviews took place on 13 May 1997, with Michael Howard, who had until 13 days earlier been Home Secretary. Howard was questioned regarding a meeting he had convened with the head of the Prison Service, Derek Lewis, regarding the potential dismissal of the head of Parkhurst Prison. During one continuous sequence Paxman put the same question - "Did you threaten to overrule him?" - twelve times to Howard, who on each occasion gave a qualified or evasive answer.^[1]

This was later revealed to be a stalling strategy by Paxman on being told that the studio was having technical trouble with one of the reports which was to follow.^{[citation needed]} In 2004 Paxman broached the subject with Howard — then Conservative leader — again; Howard laughed the question off, but did say he "didn't" threaten to overrule the Head of the Prison Service.

In 1998 Denis Halliday, one of the United Nations' humanitarian aid directors, resigned from his post in Iraq in protest at the UN sanctions imposed on Iraq, calling it "genocide." [2] In the subsequent interview with Newsnight, Paxman asked Halliday, "Aren't you just an apologist for Saddam Hussein?"

In recognition of Paxman's tough reputation, when in 2003 Prime Minister Tony Blair decided to make the case for the Iraq war directly to the public, he chose Paxman as the presenter of a TV special question-and-answer session with a public studio audience. During this interview Paxman famously asked Blair if he and President Bush "prayed together" to which Blair replied "No, Jeremy....we don't pray together".

Paxman attracted attention to his robust interviewing of party political leaders during the 2005 General Election. The BBC received complaints from some viewers that in the interviews Paxman was "rude and aggressive". Paxman's role interviewing candidates on the 2005 election night drew some attention, particularly after a 5am interview with winning candidate George Galloway. He began by asking Galloway "are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in Parliament?" (Oona King) (transcript), a line of questioning criticised by many including Oona King herself. However, after Galloway's public fall from grace in the 2006 Celebrity Big Brother debacle, Paxman challenged him (in a recorded message played on the show) to return to Newsnight for a follow-up interview. Galloway has so far declined.

[edit] Author

Paxman is also an author of non-fiction books. His first book arose out of a Panorama programme that he worked on with Robert Harris on biological and chemical warfare. Together they wrote A Higher Form of Killing (1982, ISBN 0-09-944159-4) exploring its history; a revised edition completed in late 2001 included a chapter asserting that Iraq possessed both chemical and biological weapons. Working on his own, Paxman wrote Through the Volcanoes (1987, ISBN 0-586-08572-6), about events he witnessed in Central America when working there. He also wrote Friends in High Places: Who Runs Britain? (1991, ISBN 0-14-015600-3) which investigated the labyrinthine connections between those in power in early 1990s Britain. A study of the English nation entitled The English: A Portrait of a People followed in 1998 (ISBN 0-14-026723-9) to considerable critical acclaim. The Political Animal (2002, ISBN 0-14-028847-3), discusses the character traits of those that enter politics. His most recent book is On Royalty (2006, ISBN 0-670-91662-5), a thesis on, and defence of, the United Kingdom's constitutional monarchy.

[edit] University Challenge

Paxman has presented the BBC quiz programme University Challenge since 1994, bringing to the job his trademark sardonic manner.

[edit] Trivia

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Paxman became a focus of media attention in his own right in October 2000 when the stolen Enigma machine which had been taken from Bletchley Park Museum was inexplicably sent to him in the post. He had it returned to its rightful location.[3]

Paxman's brother Giles Paxman is the British Ambassador to Mexico.

Paxman is also a secret buddhist, it was revealed on Newsnight in December 2006.

In a January 2006 episode of the BBC programme on genealogy, Who Do You Think You Are?, it was revealed that he descends from a 14th-century politician from Suffolk, Roger Packsman, who changed his name to Paxman ("man of peace") to impress the electorate. The programme was also notable for showing Paxman's rarely-seen sensitive side when he broke down after discovering an impoverished ancestor had her poor relief application revoked by the parish because she had had a child out of wedlock [4].

Paxman had a cameo role in the 2004 film Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason [5].

In April 2006 it was claimed by The Sun newspaper that he earned £800,000 for his Newsnight presenting and £240,000 for presenting University Challenge, making his putative total yearly salary £1,040,000. This revelation was one of a series of BBC salary leaks reported in the British tabloid press that sparked an investigation by the BBC.[6]

Paxman was made an honorary graduate of the University of Bradford in December 1999. On 15th September 2006 at the Barbican Centre in London, he received an honorary doctorate from the Open University. Among the invited guests at the ceremony were three members of the Open University team from University Challenge 1999.

Paxman is a Fellow by Special Election of St Edmund Hall in the University of Oxford. He is an Honorary Fellow of his alma mater, St Catharine's College, Cambridge.

When Newsnight decided to broadcast brief weather forecasts instead of financial reports he openly ridiculed it on the air (for example "and for tonight's weather - it's April, what do you expect?").