Jeremy Paxman says ‘any fool’ can be a newsreader and BBC is ‘full of boring people doing dull jobs’

Presenter compares profession to ‘reading aloud at school’

Paxman in 2014 shortly after his final Newsnight broadcast (David Hartley/Shutterstock)

"Any fool" can read the news, according to former Newsnight host Jeremy Paxman.

Now some years apart from his role at the helm of the BBC's flagship news programme, Mr Paxman has publicly denounced the newsreading profession, saying it lacks "any grandeur or skill".

"Newsreading is an occupation for an articulated suit," he said during an appearance on RHLSTP with Richard Herring, in which he also said the BBC was full of “boring people”.

"I can't see any point in reading the news at all," he went on, "Do you remember reading aloud at school? That's what it is."

Mr Paxman, who remains on the BBC as host of University Challenge, defended the corporation in principle but had no kind words for his colleagues.

"I think you have to decide, would the world be a better place if the BBC didn't exist," he said. "I come down on the side of: the world would not be a better place if the BBC didn't exist, but it is an immensely frustrating organisation.

"It's full of boring people doing dull jobs and pretending they're important. Whereas its true mission is just to make interesting programmes."

War correspondents were subject to perhaps Mr Paxman's harshest assessment. Speaking from experience as a correspondent in Northern Ireland, Beirut and Uganda, he said he had no patience for war reporters who centre their coverage around themselves.

"It's very dangerous. But I don't tell war stories because it just switches the focus from whatever's happening wherever you are to me, me, me," he said.

"That's the besetting problem with television, it's full of vainglorious fools who want to be on telly instead of just letting the story tell itself."

Mr Paxman has not in recent years had anything nice to say about newsreaders, notably lead BBC News presenter Huw Edwards who he said acted "like an evangelical preacher" when presenting.

In fact, all newsreaders bar Channel 4's Jon Snow are failed actors as opposed to serious journalists by Mr Paxman's reckoning.

At least that is according to an interview with The Times in 2018 in which he also was unable to recall disparaging remarks made about Jeremy Vine, who he reportedly referred to as his "mini-me".

In his hour-long appearance on Richard Herring's Twitch show, he also made no secret of his contempt for squirrels, which he said he shoots with an air rifle from atop his toilet.

He also described acting as "an evanescent, pointless thing to do".