RTS award for Jeffrey Archer: A Life of Lies

Royal Television Society Award for Jeffrey Archer: A Life of Lies

Panorama's special programme on the trial of Jeffrey Archer won a major award at the Royal Television Society Awards on Thursday, 28 February.

Produced by Terry Tyldesley, it was the winner of the Home Current Affairs category.

The programme was aired on 19 July 2001 to coincide with the Archer trial verdict: guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice.

If there was a Professor of Archerology it would surely be reporter Michael Crick

RTS judges' appraisal

Reporter Michael Crick had observed the politician and novelist for many years, and his film featured comments from characters who had so far remained silent.

New evidence was also uncovered relating to Archer's mistress and the amount of money he gave to prostitute Monica Coghlan - contradicting his assertions that he was devoted and faithful to his wife.

The judges said:

"If there was a Professor of Archerology it would surely be reporter Michael Crick who has made Jeffrey Archer's business his business for more than a decade. In the year of Archer's nemesis and imprisonment for perjury, Crick reported once again on the saga he rightly described as Stranger Than Fiction. Though merciless in its details and very funny at times, this was the product of superb investigative journalism on and off screen and told with some understandable relish."

The Guardian also praised the programme highly at the time of its broadcast, saying:

"At a time when our [journalists'] integrity is in the public mind down there in the sewers, roughly on a par with professional extortionists and worse, politicians, Michael Crick's Panorama on Jeffrey Archer last Thursday night can allow us all to walk a little taller."

Panorama was also nominated in the Foreign Current Affairs category for Fergal Keane and Aidan Laverty's The Accused, which focused on the role of Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres of Palestinian refugees in the Lebanon in 1982.

Read about other Panorama awards