Thursday, 19 June, 2008
It's been a busy day in the Newsnight office, but today's output editor, Shaminder, doesn't look too stressed - which must mean that a running order is taking shape. As I look around I notice that today's production team is almost entirely female - although a male producer got the Brussels gig. Anyway, details of the programme are below - do add your comments either before or after the programme.
UNSEEN BURMA
The second of our two extraordinary "Unseen Burma" films. Six weeks ago, cyclone Nargis swept through the country, killing 130,000 people. The Burmese authorities have refused access to many journalists seeking to visit the disaster zone, but the investigative journalist Simon Ostrovsky managed to get there for Newsnight. After his film, we will be discussing what more needs to be done for the survivors, and how the eyewitness reports we've featured on the programme this week have challenged our perceptions on how the aid effort was handled by the Burmese authorities.
(Watch a short clip from tonight's film below:)
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NO, NO, NO
Our political correspondent David Grossman is in Brussels for today's big European Council summit, to try to discover what on earth Europe's leaders are going to do about the Irish NO on the Lisbon Treaty.
FRENCH FINANCE
We have an interview with one of the most powerful women in the world (according to Forbes) - Christine Lagarde, the French Finance Minister. She'll be giving us the French take on global economic turmoil, and the turmoil over Europe's future.
GM DEBATE
Can GM crops help solve the world food crisis? The Environment Minister, Phil Woolas, says we need to debate what role GM could play. So we will.
Hope you can join us later.
NEWSNIGHT REVIEW
Take a look at the line-up for tomorrow's Newsnight Review. Kirsty and company will be looking at the Keira Knightley film The Edge of Love, among other things. .
NEWSNIGHT BLOGS
And today we've re-launched Newsnight's blogs, featuring comments and analysis from our Diplomatic Editor Mark Urban, Political Editor Michael Crick, and of course our very own editor Peter Barron.
Comment number 1.
At 19th Jun 2008, barriesingleton wrote:TANGLED WEB
Just looking at the Newsnight subjects over a couple of weeks, one sees an inter-related tangle of threads, way beyond the wit of anyone to sort out. The 'here today and gone tomorrow' politicians pick at a thread or two, while posturing competence, then move on. The Emperor has now been sold so many sets of clothes, he will soon be accosted by bogus joiners wanting to fit invisible wardrobes all round his bedchamber, and probably a bogus loan shark to cover the outlay, although that would not make a story.
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Comment number 2.
At 19th Jun 2008, Rustigjongens wrote:If you must redesign the Editors blog at least attempt to make it user-centric, it's new layout is worse than before.
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Comment number 3.
At 20th Jun 2008, PeterBarron wrote:Rustigjongens (2)
In which ways do you think it's worse? Most of the users here seem to think it's an improvement, and it seems to me to be working much better.
Peter
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Comment number 4.
At 20th Jun 2008, bookhimdano wrote:unity is strength. the idea of blog segmentation is divisive. in a football idiom is newsnight a team or a collection of individuals?
segmentation is the bbc sickness. it does not believe there is any such thing as unity which is why we have a meaningless explosion of channels, sections, themes etc. [see parmenides for the natural consequences of that]
i didn't see the problem with the old format. anything that makes the user click more times is not user friendly?
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Comment number 5.
At 20th Jun 2008, barriesingleton wrote:GET WITH THE BEAT BAGGY
Age of change Dano! (#4) AGE OF CHANGE!
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Comment number 6.
At 20th Jun 2008, bookhimdano wrote:i fear, with the ±«Óãtv, we are in King Louie's Kingdom. They like to monkey around...
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Comment number 7.
At 20th Jun 2008, barriesingleton wrote:AH! HUMOUR!
Nya ya ya ya ya ya. (signed Mork)
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Comment number 8.
At 20th Jun 2008, leftieoddbod wrote:Peter, Some times I cannot get in to watch Newsnight and rely on latest newsnight so I don't miss out..till now. You have once again changed the format so how do Neanderthals like me proceed? I wish we English would stop meddling around with things and leave things as they are. IT was all so simple under Attlee. Where it says Blog forum and watch again, can we have watch again?
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Comment number 9.
At 20th Jun 2008, kevseywevsey wrote:Barrie the word-smith gave us this yesterday:
"Often, it is only 'outsiders' who have the time and the mind-set to go against authority. Thus, statistically, oddballs are over-represented in protest"...class.
I just thought that needed repeating.
Whenever change happens someone always goes into bitch mode; i came home from work once to a living room painted purple...i was not a happy bunny, "jesus luv, what have you done to the house!"...i bitched all week till it was magnolia again.
"Them extra few links are gonna throw me, i've got a busy schedule to keep and don't think i have the time"...
Some just don't know their born...do they.
But that will soon change when the recession bites-
"jimmy, put the solar powered Playstation down...we gots to go out and kills us some dinner."
Cat never tasted so good.
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Comment number 10.
At 20th Jun 2008, Cloe_F wrote:#9 - why this? You're post are usually very good/readable...
"Them extra few links are gonna throw me, i've got a busy schedule to keep and don't think i have the time"...
Some just don't know their (sic.) born...do they.
Do you want to elaborate a little? Maybe some have just had a really bad week or just aren't as intelligent/energetic as you are and take a somewhat longer to compile and write their posts... is that really such a sin?
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Comment number 11.
At 20th Jun 2008, occultations wrote:When a politician says we need a debate on GM crops, what he means is that he wants a debate so that we can be lulled into thinking that the politicians are listening to our concerns, when in fact they've made up their minds already that GM crops going to be forced on us more and more whether we want them or not.
And when ( "Ministers argue there is a growing body of evidence that GM crops are safe", what they mean is that there is no such evidence, and they simply want it to be true. They think that if they say it enough then we'll be convinced. If anything, the evidence is growing that GM crops are harmful, to the environment and to humans.
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Comment number 12.
At 20th Jun 2008, kevseywevsey wrote:cloe -f at 10:
I fear you may have misinterpreted my post at 9. Barries comment reproduced was because it was a killer line (brilliant) and the rest was satire based on some comments made about the change to the NN blog; how some encounter difficulty with change and how they respond to it, be it small or big (me included).
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Comment number 13.
At 23rd Jun 2008, Cloe_F wrote:#12 - indeed.. I misunderstood.
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