40 years of Newsnight
We look at the high points from four decades of headline analysis and bombshell interviews
PETER SNOW, David Davies, Charles Wheeler and Fran Morrison were the first presenters to host Newsnight.
The BBC’s flagship news and current affairs programme began on January 30, 1980 and is still going strong four decades later.
It aimed to bring news and current affairs together for the first time and offer viewers an in-depth look at the various issues of day.
The opening programme covered the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, Margaret Thatcher’s attempts to get a rebate on British contributions to the EEC, a peaceful sit-in by prisoners at Wormwood Scrubs over allegations of brutality by prison officers and proposed restrictions to secondary picketing and curbs to trade union power.
The BBC2 programme originally went out at 10.45pm with Peter Snow as the main presenter, David Davies presenting the sport headlines and Fran Morrison reading the news and weather.
Charles Wheeler, who died in 2008 at the age of 85, was one of the programme’s main foreign correspondents.
Peter Snow remained the face of
Newsnight for 17 years before stepping down in 1997, while others who have worked on the programme over the past 40 years include Jenni Murray, Jeremy
I spent 25 years listening to people talk b ******* every night. That was enough. Jeremy Paxman on quitting Newsnight
Vine, Sue Cameron, Laura Kuenssberg and Michael Crick.
Jeremy Paxman hosted the current affairs show from 1989 to 2014 and famously asked squirming former Home Secretary Michael Howard the same question 12 times – “Did you threaten to overrule him?” – during a 1997 interview about the controversial dismissal of Derek Lewis, the head of the prison service, two years earlier.
Paxman, who was nicknamed Paxo for giving unfortunate guests a stuffing, said last year that he did not miss Newsnight because “I spent 25 years listening to people talk b ******* every night. That was enough”.
Newsnight is still tackling the big issues of the day and last year featured the first interview with the Duke of York about his relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Emily Maitlis, who carried out the interview, said she had “never expected to hear” some of the answers the royal gave on Newsnight.