Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades.
Several of the programme's editors over the years have gone on to senior positions within the BBC and elsewhere. Paxman's fellow presenters are Gavin Esler,Kirsty Wark and Emily Maitlis.Newsnight has been broadcast on BBC Two since 1980. It goes out on weekday evenings between 10:30pm and 11:20pm. Occasionally it may have an extended edition if there is an especially eventful event in the news - as happened on July 7 2011, when closure of the News of the World led to an extended version which went on until 11:35 pm. Recordings are available within the UK via the BBC website. A weekly 26-minute digest edition of Newsnight is screened on the corporation's international channel, BBC World News.
Newsnight in its current format began on 30 January 1980, although a shorter news bulletin of the same name had run in its late-night BBC2 slot during the 1970s. Its launch was delayed for four months by the Association of Broadcasting Staff, at the time the main BBC trade union.Newsnight was the first programme to be made by means of a direct collaboration between BBC News, then at Television Centre, and the current affairs department, based some distance away at the Lime Grove Studios. Staff feared job cuts.
George Joshua Richard Monbiot (born 27 January 1963) is an English writer, known for his environmental and political activism. He lives in Machynlleth, Wales, writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain (2000) and Bring on the Apocalypse: Six Arguments for Global Justice (2008). He is the founder of The Land is Ours campaign, which campaigns peacefully for the right of access to the countryside and its resources in the United Kingdom. In January 2010, Monbiot founded the ArrestBlair.org website which offers a reward to people attempting a peaceful citizen’s arrest of former British prime minister Tony Blair for alleged crimes against peace.
George Monbiot grew up in Henley-on-Thames in South Oxfordshire, England, in a house next to Peppard Common. Politics was at the heart of family life—his father, Raymond Geoffrey Monbiot, is a businessman who headed the Conservative Party's trade and industry forum, while his mother, Rosalie—the elder daughter of Conservative MP Roger Gresham Cooke—was a Conservative councillor who led South Oxford district council for a decade. His uncle, Canon Hereward Cooke, was the Liberal Democrat deputy leader of Norwich City Council between 2002 and 2006. Monbiot was educated at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire, an independent school, and won an Open Scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford.
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. (born October 8, 1941) is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to form Rainbow/PUSH. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. is his eldest son. In an AP-AOL "Black Voices" poll in February 2006, Jackson was voted "the most important black leader".
Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns in Greenville, South Carolina, to Helen Burns, a 16-year-old single mother. His biological father, Noah Louis Robinson, a former professional boxer and a prominent figure in the community, was married to another woman when Jesse was born. He was not involved in his son's life, and died January 28, 1997 in Greenville, S.C. In 1943, two years after Jesse's birth, his mother married Charles Henry Jackson, who would adopt Jesse 14 years later. Jesse went on to take the surname of his stepfather.