Yes I saw that, ironic as his blog is called "Idle Scrawl". His questions seemed to be short and simple, and whilst there's something to be said for that style, it's not really the level of analysis you expect on Newsnight. Also, he seemed content to let the guest(s) waffle on and on, and then suddenly jumped in with another question which again suggests lots of prompting from the gallery.
Michael Crick has a quick interview in the latest edition of
Total Politics
magazine, where he's asked about the move to Channel 4.
Total Politics posted:
Leaving the BBC
I'll have my evenings back, thank you very much! You can never make plans for dinner, or theatre, or anything. The whole of the BBC will be going through a big squeeze, and lots of good people are going to be leaving. I'm moving down a floor, but I'm hoping I might actually get a desk at Channel 4 News - I never really had a permanent desk at Newsnight,. They didn't guarantee that, though, so I might not. I didn't bring it up in the negotiations. Maybe I should have.
Copyright 2011 Total Poltics/ Biteback Media
So confirming that, as well as personal reasons (evenings back), the upcoming cuts was a major contributing in his decisions to leave. And also interesting that he too sees stepping from being Newsnight's Political Editor to Channel 4 News' political correspondent as a step down. I wonder if he'd applied for/ had been interviewed/ had been in talks for the third co-presenter job, given he's effectively replacing Cathy Newman.
I doubt he applied for a presenting role as he has little presenting experience and is much more suited to a reporting role - I'm fairly sure he never presented Newsnight during his stint as political editor. The previous pol ed, Martha Kearney, was a semi-regular presenter at one point so the opportunity would have probably been there for him to do some fill-in presenting if he'd wanted to.
I doubt he applied for a presenting role as he has little presenting experience and is much more suited to a reporting role - I'm fairly sure he never presented Newsnight during his stint as political editor. The previous pol ed, Martha Kearney, was a semi-regular presenter at one point so the opportunity would have probably been there for him to do some fill-in presenting if he'd wanted to.
For some reason I thought he'd presented on Radio - I could be wrong, however.
