Роджер Кук: Тергеу журналистикасының шебері

Investigative journalist and broadcaster

Roger Cook (born 6 April 1943) is a New Zealand born British investigative journalist and television broadcaster. In 1997, he won a British Academy of Film & Television Arts special award "for 25 years of outstanding quality investigative reporting", for his show The Cook Report. and began his career with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as a reporter and newsreader on both radio and television. In 1968, Cook moved to the United Kingdom where he joined BBC Radio 4's The World At One programme and subsequently worked on several other BBC radio and television programmes, including PM, Nationwide, and Newsnight.

In 1973, Cook created and presented the Radio 4 programme Checkpoint, which specialised in investigating and exposing criminals, con men, injustice and official incompetence, often confronting the subjects of the investigation on tape. In 1979 Cook was threatened by Don Arden when he started to look into the business practices of the notorious rock manager. In 1981, during a Checkpoint report for Newsnight, Cook was filmed being violently assaulted with a metal bar by a Brighton antique dealer after he confronted him about selling fake antiques. Cook suffered three cracked ribs.

In 1985, Cook moved from the BBC to Central, and (after one series in charge of the live debate show Central Weekend in 1986) in 1987 launched a new TV series, The Cook Report. The programme and its production team won 11 national and international awards, culminating in a British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA) special award for Cook in 1997 "for 25 years of outstanding quality investigative reporting".

Cook has published several books, including an autobiography, Dangerous Ground. In October 2011 he released a revised and updated autobiography, More Dangerous Ground. Cook also holds an Emeritus Visiting Professorship at the Centre for Broadcasting and Journalism at Nottingham Trent University and was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters by the University in 2004.

Cook has been parodied by comedians including Benny Hill and Reeves and Mortimer. In the 1980s, his Checkpoint series was the inspiration for a sitcom, BBC Radio 4's Delve Special, where investigative journalist David Lander, played by Stephen Fry, doorstepped many fictional villains. When Cook's investigations moved to television, the parody followed, in Channel 4's This is David Lander, with Tony Slattery later taking over the central role in the show. Many of Lander and Harper's investigations were based on reports made by Cook, Panorama and World in Action. A puppet version of Cook also appeared several times in the satirical series Spitting Image. In one sketch, Cook's puppet double goes to the Pearly Gates and confronts God as if he were a crooked estate agent who promised land to the Jews, only to offer the same land to the Arabs under the name of Allah.

Cook has been married twice, first for five years whilst he was living in Australia. He married his second wife, Frances, in 1983; they had one daughter, born in 1985.