Dangerous Ground: The Inside Story of Britain's Leading Investigative Journalist

by Roger Cook

In 25 years of investigative reporting, Roger Cook has been knocked unconscious a dozen times, hospitalized on almost thirty occasions, and has had 23 bones broken by those who have resented his ruthless persistence - or just objected to the fact that he exists at all. He was born 6 April 1943 in New Zealand. His father - a timid man afraid of attack from Japanese submarines rumoured to have been sighted in Auckland harbour - soon found refuge and a new start for his family in Sydney, Australia. If anything was going to prepare Roger Cook for what he was to become, it was growing up in the Australia of the 1950s - a melting-pot of different nationalities, scarred by the war, and with an unsophisticated and sometimes brutal education system. After school and college he found his broadcasting feet at a Sydney commercial radion station, moving on to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He then emigrated to Britain to tackle BBC radio, where he prospered at "The World at One". his brainchild however was "Checkpoint", which became the most popular programme on Radio 4 after "Today". Cook and his team exposed a breadth of institutional incompetencies, bad law, injustices and naked criminalty. This is his life story.

358 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1999

Reviews

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having Recently Watched many Episodes of The Cook Report on YouTube, I Decided to Give Roger Cook's first Book a Read & I Wasn't Disappointed! The Many Cook Report Tales are fascinating when you see it from Roger's Eyes, From Hunting Down British Criminals hiding on Spain's Costa Del Crime like Ronnie Knight & Freddie Foreman to Cracking down on Canned Hunts & Elephant Poaching in Africa as well as Investigating The "Hot Dog Wars", Tackling Spanish Pirates on the High Seas & Confronting the Triads in Manchester, Highly Recommended!

[Ian Boyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read, u remember watching the Spanish fishing report on repeat becywe where a family of fishermen on the west coast of Ireland