Michael Crick's in reception
It's a matter of dispute as to who produced Michael Crick's first ever piece for Newsnight back in 1992. Newsnight's 's partner Lucy thinks she did, whereas I think it was me. Certainly I remember producing a very early film with Michael - a profile about a little-known US presidential hopeful called Bill Clinton.
The film centred on the time Clinton had spent as a Rhodes scholar in Oxford and involved a run-in with the official photographers at the college Clinton had attended. They wouldn't let us film a contemporary year photograph being taken, so we improvised by climbing a wall and shooting over it, giving me an early metaphor of Michael's approach to journalism.
In one of those odd coincidences that Michael so enjoys and seems to attract, his last film for Newsnight before taking up his new post involved a run-in with the same photographic company. They had just withdrawn an embarrassing photo of David Cameron posing as a member of Oxford's notorious Bullingdon club. Again Michael improvised by commissioning an artist to paint a reproduction of the photograph, thus getting round the copyright rules.
And during the course of making that film he remembered a college chaplain had once showed him another photograph of a young Tony Blair making a rude gesture, but wouldn't allow him to film it. Might he have changed his mind more than a decade on? This time .
As Michael told me on that very first assignment, his aim is to find out everything there is to know about a subject, and then find out some more.
Comments
I remember the Clinton-at-Oxford film very well. The best bit, though, was at the end when we tried to film through the door of Clinton's old college, Univ. and a porter turned up and closed the door in our faces. So I reopened the door and poked my microphone through. "Why did you you close the door?" I asked. "Was it because of Bill Clinton?" "Who's Bill Clinton?" he replied. Priceless.
And I've checked, Peter. Lucy's film was the first, not yours.
The previous Editors blog tries to defend accusations of ´óÏó´«Ã½ bias, now we get a blog about Michael Crick and what a great man he is.
I'm sorry but from watching and listening to Mr Crick's previous output it is clear he is as Pro-Labour as it is possible to get.
You say that 'Michael aim is to find out everything there is to know about a subject and then more', what a load of rubbish, Mr Crick is an expert at taking things out of context to fit his left wing view.
If Mr Crick was so impartial why has it taken him 15 years to gain the courage to show a picture about Blair?, a cynic would say that he used it now as an excuse to attack Cameron by showing one of Blair at the same time as showing one of Cameron, what a brave man Michael is, Blair is out of office shortly, and Cameron has a good chance to take his place as Prime Minister.
´óÏó´«Ã½ impartial and not biased?, what a load of tosh.
May i ask a general question to Mr Crick who will make an excellent Political Editor, what has being your biggest mistake in a news story which must happen given the tight deadlines and large number of stories you have covered, maybe when a key fact was wrong or a political figure seriously mis-reported and what did you do when you realised the mistake to put things right?
best wishes and Good luck
Bob Goodall
What a smarmy piece! I'm sure Crick has made the odd mistake in his career - why not mention those as well?
Investigative journalism is fine but intrusive journalism is questionable. One just has to think of what the paparazzi did to Princess Diana: their 'antics' led to the tragic crash. In the same way way scaling walls and taking photos of subjects against their wishes should be frowned upon. Responsible journalism means respecting the wishes of subjects. Catching them in 'compromising' situations and publishing them leave a sour taste in the mouth. That is not something to crow about!
It might have been a good idea to have said what Michael's new post was. I assumed he was off to pastures new, from reading this.
Two stories just so you can link back to the same mildly amusing picture of Tony Blair making the internationally recognised hand gesture for "journalist"?
Bit slow on Newsnight is it?
This piece of information just shows how difficult and challenging it is for the newspersons to delve into their story and to work out their ways to produce it in such a way as it does justice to their concept and assignment. Mr. Michael Crick being a sincere and dedicated journalist is bound to have his share of such odd challenges which he has his own ingenious means of overcoming.
Nutan Thakur,
President,
Jan Shakti,
India
I was interested in Bernie's comment as my impression has been that Crick attacks the Tories with more relish than he does Labour. I believe he wrote a book about Jeffrey Archer, and then there was a piece about Iain Duncan Smith's dodgy CV. Can't remember too many similar character assassinations of Labour figures. So come on then, Mr Crick, defend yourself!
"As Michael told me on that very first assignment, his aim is to find out everything there is to know about a subject, and then find out some more."
Excellent, but leave nothing out!
If at anytime you or others want to step outside of the PC chains (ie. tell it like it is) you should have a little flashing logo in the corner of the screen, then we know that you know when you're chains are being pulled!