Goes where noone dares to go... (MacIntyre Investigates)

Member Name: alirigby

Product:	MacIntyre Investigates
Date:	14/05/02 (806 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting, Shocking, Insightful

Disadvantages: none

Donal MacIntyre has recently returned to BBC 1 on Thursday nights at 9pm (the programme lasts for an hour) with an hour of his hard-hitting, investigative journalism. Despite the fact that he is now quite prominent in the media and has received numerous death threats after the last series, he has continued with undercover investigations for this new series.
‘MacIntyre Investigates’ exposes wrongdoing and corruption both at home and abroad.

Brief Biography:*
Donal MacIntyre was born in 1966 in Dublin, he grew up in Ireland and then studied in Dublin and London, later completing a Masters degree in Communications at City University. At one point, he was considered for the Irish canoeing team at the Seoul Olympics. Initially he worked as a newspaper journalist , His first work in television was for the award winning BBC series On-The-Line in 1993 where his first tv undercover work was broadcast.
In 1999 MacIntyre Undercover was shown, the series covered the issues of football hooligans, the fashion industry, abuse in care homes, and Nigerian con men. The programme’s success continued after it had been broadcast when 2 of the hooligans revealed were convicted of conspiracy to commit violent disorder and affray and were sentenced to 6/7 years in and were banned from attending football matches for 10 years.
In June 2001, he presented a BAFTA nominated documentary on the Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVeigh.

The Programme:
The team go undercover with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment to reveal suspects involved with street crime, the vice trade and drugs. MacIntyre goes where many other reporters have not been and it makes for both insightful and compelling viewing. The programmes scrutinise issues that wouldn’t usually be in the spotlight despite how shocking they are.
It is obviously increasingly difficult for MacIntyre to go undercover due to his, now, high profile; in this series he is usually
either heavily disguised or members of the team do the actual ‘in person’ work.
In the last programme he examined the Sex Trade in London; the illegal sale of immigrants into prostitution, mainly by Albanian pimps. It was a blunt, explicit account of the reality and sordidness and left you feeling helpless and heartbroken as you watched the fate of these poor girls being decided. Above all the programme made you aware that the trafficking of young women is a very real, current problem and it’s going on all around us.
Previously the horror surrounding the drug YaBa (a huge problem in Thailand and Japan) was discussed and MacIntyre went, illegally, into Burma to expose the government/army’s involvement with its production. Yaba is a drug that often causes violent and erratic behaviour and can lead to devastating consequences including murder and suicide, it is at epidemic proportions in Thailand where the authorities are dealing with increased Yaba related crime. It made compelling viewing, you could sense the fear as the team was shot at in Burma and looked for drugs in Thailand. It was also revealed how this very dangerous drug was making its way to our shores and was being sold on the pretence of being ecstasy.
He has also investigated UK street crime, especially mobile phone theft although I missed this episode.
Each issue is covered in some depth and the programme is the result of many months hard work from the team, no stone is left unturned.

I really enjoy the programmes, the subject matter is always presented in a clear, informative manner and there’s no holds-barred on where the team will go. The one thing I dislike about the series is that you often end up feeling so helpless about the situation, there are no suggestions on anything proactive that you can do to stop these injustices… perhaps that’s because there’s nothing we can do.

For more info:
Visit his website: h
ttp://macintyre.com/

*Biography info found on Macintyre.com

Summary: