Criticism
Paxman has been publicly criticised over his and his partner's home help arrangements. Having advertised on a Romanian website, they hired two people at below minimum wage without a written contract. While this is not illegal in the UK if employees live in, Paxman, known for grilling interviewees on workers' rights issues, was criticised when his employees went public, claiming to have been paid "the bare minimum".
Paxman's controversial remarks about the Scots have provoked anger at parliamentary level. Twenty Scottish Members of Parliament signed a House of Commons motion in March 2005 condemning him for comparing supposed Scottish dominance at Westminster to British rule in India: a "Scottish Raj" was running the UK, said Paxman. The row came right after a Cabinet minister had complained that the Newsnight host had been offensive about his Glasgow accent. Paxman's response served further to fan the flames. In an introduction to a new edition of Chambers Dictionary in August 2008 Paxman labelled the work of Scotland's national poet Robert Burns as "sentimental doggerel." Paxman himself is quarter-Scottish through his maternal grandmother, a fact which he stated has led to many of his comments being misunderstood as he regards the Scots "with affection".
Paxman has been widely condemned as disrespectful when commented in an absurd way the possible exit of Greece from the Eurozone ('like bad kebab vomiting") on 31 May 2012 edition of Newsnight. He received many angry messages from the audience on Twitter and other media accusing him for racist and inappropriate stereotypical analogies
Paxman has been criticised by John Pilger for his involvement with the British-American Project.
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Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)