The Cook Report (And Other Relics From The Age of Crusading Journalism)

[Shit Good Nose]

Were there any remotely comparable shows at the time even?!

I seem to remember Donal Mcintyre's early stuff (which admittedly started at the arse end of The Cook Report) was spectacularly mental because it was typically just him on his own with a concealed camera hanging around with gangsters and murderers for a few months before he later turns up with a camera crew and reveals his identity.  Am I right in remembering he had two or three separate contracts taken out on him roughly at the same time in the early-mid 00s?

You also had the occasional investigative stuff on the old (Hugh Scully/Nick Ross/Lynn Faulds Wood/John Stapleton) Watchdog when it wasn't all just British Gas' poor customer service, noisy building works at a luxury holiday resort, and the little fella sharing a lame pun with Ann Robinson.

[sponk]

Hopefully they turn up on VHS at a carboot or in a charity shop.

You think they still sell tapes in charity shops, are you on glue or something?

[Shit Good Nose]

You think they still sell tapes in charity shops, are you on glue or something?

There is a shop in Bath called Junk which sells, amongst other redundant things, VHS and betamax videos (prices are 50p, £1 or £1.50 depending on condition).  It's not quite I Saw You Coming, but nevertheless I doubt it will be around for long.

Still plenty of vids at bigger carboots as well, but yeah - I can't remember the last time I saw videos on sale in a charity shop, and I know for a fact the ones local to us don't accept videos any more (they all have a sign that lists what they won't accept).

[sponk]

That shop sounds pretty cool actually. If I lived near Bath I wouldn't mind getting a load of tapes and seeing if anything interesting was on them.

Regarding the Child Pornography episode of the Cook Report, it must have been hugely shocking and revelatory to a lot of people at the time, considering that it was taken much less seriously back then, so it probably did a lot of good, but I can't believe they showed actual footage from CSA films just a few minutes before showing an interview with a survivor who says that knowing her abuse was filmed and distributed was as bad as the abuse itself. Aren't the producers of the CR guilty of that? I wish they'd at least blurred the victims faces.

[Shit Good Nose]

That shop sounds pretty cool actually. If I lived near Bath I wouldn't mind getting a load of tapes and seeing if anything interesting was on them.

Oh, they're all ex-rental and shop bought films and TV shows - not someone's 4 hour Maxell tape filled with 8 hours (long play) of late night channel 4 and Television X freeviews.

Regarding the Child Pornography episode of the Cook Report, it must have been hugely shocking and revelatory to a lot of people at the time, considering that it was taken much less seriously back then, so it probably did a lot of good, but I can't believe they showed actual footage from CSA films just a few minutes before showing an interview with a survivor who says that knowing her abuse was filmed and distributed was as bad as the abuse itself. Aren't the producers of the CR guilty of that? I wish they'd at least blurred the victims faces.

Different broadcast rules back then I guess.  Would "more relaxed" be the right phrase to use, without trivialising?  Probs not.  Without having watched it (and I almost certainly won't - I can't handle stuff like that since being a parent), perhaps the victims allowed their faces to be shown?

[sponk]

Definitely not because it's made pretty clear that the girl in one piece of footage was unidentified.

[Shit Good Nose]

Oof.

[biggytitbo]

That child 'pornography' episode has to be the most irresponsible and unpleasant thing broadcast on mainstream tv, and Cook is almost partridge-esque in the inappropriateness of how he behaves throughout. Utterly jawdropping.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

... Reminding the viewer of Brass Eye Special on several occasions.

There's some good stuff in there though. By the end they have convinced of Scotland Yard's complete unpreparedness and inadequacy without ever being directly critical. They make the Donaldson bloke look like a clueless gurning idiot. They also hint towards the corruption of the judiciary by mentioning the sentencing remarks about child pornography collection being 'like cigarette cards'. It's interesting how these leave at least as profound an effect as Cook storming into rooms in a sort of paedo version of Noel Edmonds Gotcha.

[Solid Jim]

I seem to remember Donal Mcintyre's early stuff (which admittedly started at the arse end of The Cook Report) was spectacularly mental because it was typically just him on his own with a concealed camera hanging around with gangsters and murderers for a few months before he later turns up with a camera crew and reveals his identity.  Am I right in remembering he had two or three separate contracts taken out on him roughly at the same time in the early-mid 00s?

I remember that the final episode of Macintyre Undercover was going to be about insider trading, until it was quietly dropped from the schedule and never mentioned again.

[Phil_A]

Does anyone remember a Channel 4 investigative thing from about fifteen years ago?

It had two strands to it, one was a British Asian woman posing as a shop-keeper in a small Derbyshire town with a known racism problem, the other a male reporter going undercover in the NF to suss out if their activities were connected to any incidents in town. A camera across the street would monitor the shop at all times to see if they could catch any ne'er-do-wells in the act.

The somewhat depressing outcome was that the racist attacks were just bored local kids, the NF goons wouldn't go near it as they sniffed out an obvious set-up.


Grimly compelling viewing nonetheless.

[Jockice]

If we're doing old ones I remember a sort of Roger Cook rip-off bloke in the 80s called John Stoneborough, and how he once did one of those doorstepping an alleged crook things and got absolutely thrashed. Not physically though, verbally, as the bloke had an answer for everything and just showed the reporter up for knowing nothing about the subject and getting things wrong. It was absolutely excruciating to watch.

[biggytitbo]

The one Macintyre did with gangster Dominic Noonan is something else. Not only where he comes out as gay but the scene where his brother (i think) jokes about all the people he's killed. That whole episode is jaw dropping.

[Jockice]

Fuck-up. Ignore.

[Jockice]

Does anyone remember a Channel 4 investigative thing from about fifteen years ago?

It had two strands to it, one was a British Asian woman posing as a shop-keeper in a small Derbyshire town with a known racism problem, the other a male reporter going undercover in the NF to suss out if their activities were connected to any incidents in town. A camera across the street would monitor the shop at all times to see if they could catch any ne'er-do-wells in the act.

The somewhat depressing outcome was that the racist attacks were just bored local kids, the NF goons wouldn't go near it as they sniffed out an obvious set-up.


Grimly compelling viewing nonetheless.

I do. I just can't remember the reporter's name (she was on a few things around that time) and the town. Which is annoying me as I spend a lot of time in Derbyshire nowadays.

[Pseudopath]

I do. I just can't remember the reporter's name (she was on a few things around that time) and the town. Which is annoying me as I spend a lot of time in Derbyshire nowadays.

This article suggests it was a 2001 documentary called Sleepers, the town was Langley Mill and the undercover shopkeeper was Loose Woman Saira Khan. That can't be right though...didn't she get famous by appearing on The Apprentice a few years later? Is there a journalist who goes by the same name?

[Jockice]

This article suggests it was a 2001 documentary called Sleepers, the town was Langley Mill and the undercover shopkeeper was Loose Woman Saira Khan. That can't be right though...didn't she get famous by appearing on The Apprentice a few years later? Is there a journalist who goes by the same name?

No, it's a totally different one. Although the Loose Woman one is from Derbyshire, Long Eaton to be precise. Where I spend quite a lot of time and have never seen her there.