Clive

Ahhh, Newsnight, dear Newsnight! Those of us with long(er) memories will remember the show as it once was, in its 45-minute format with either Peter Snow, Jeremy Paxman, Sue Cameron or James Cox at the helm. Perhaps the rot started (very slowly) when Auntie staged a programme swap and exchanged the softer, elegant Francine Stock for the punchier, terrier Kirsty Wark in 1993. Consensus agreed with that move at the time: Stock's too soft on her interviewees and never gets anything out of them, they said; Wark will sort them out and leave them broken, they said. Given the way the show has since gone, you'd probably kill for Stock to come back and show everybody how it's done. In truth, Newsnight has struggled to escape from the shadows of Snow and Paxman. Both were titans of British political broadcasting and any programme would have toiled hard to replace them. Thanks to Deborah Turness (Head of BBC News), Newsnight has now been shorn of all its investigative reporting (often its best feature) and reduced it to a half-hour chat show, normally hosted by Victoria Derbyshire, a priggish, humourless radio jock who thinks that holding politicians to account is to shout and hector at them mercilessly until they submit. We could do with less of her. If it's not her, then it's Faisal Islam, a good, solid economics reporter but who can never seem to read the autocue properly, or it's Sima Kotecha, who has the rare ability to read the news at you as if it were your fault (it often _is_ my fault, so sorry about that!), or it's Katie Razzall, who perhaps has the friendliest persona of all of them, but isn't great at chairing the round-tables. Then you've got Nick Watt and his unbelievably annoying hand gestures: why has nobody spoken to him about that? Needless to say, none of them can hold a candle to Snow or Paxman and they know that themselves. The show will get its future back if Turness reverses her decision, gives Newsnight its old format back and also thinks about rejigging its presenter roster. Over the summer, I noticed that Paddy O'Connell was deployed as one of the relief presenters: he was excellent, so give him a permanent spot. Also - a very leftfield choice, I know - how about Aaron Heslehurst? Yes, I know: his personality is - ahem! - distinctive and he does have a tendency to make fatuous remarks off the cuff. But he also brings difference and something the show hasn't had in years: positivity! For him, every day is a good day and he'd brighten up the dullest of nights with him just being on. Derbyshire couldn't do that for one night even if given ten whole years to do it. One more thing, why can't Newsnight be given back one of its very earliest features: the sports desk? Not sure who you'd have fronting it, though they'd likely choose someone like Jane Dougall or Will Perry, neither of which would be a bad shout. It would just need to be a five-minute segment, nothing longer. Newsnight's fortunes _can_ be revived, but it needs the BBC to show some imagination and innovation. Is it capable? Indeed, is it any longer bothered what happens to it?