David Aaronovitch (born in London) is a British journalist, broadcaster and author.
He is the son of the late economist and Communist Sam Aaronovitch and brother of the actor Owen Aaronovitch . He was sent down from the University of Oxford at the end of his first year, he completed his education at the University of Manchester. He was a member of the University Challenge team that lost in the first round in in 1975 after answering every question with the name of a revolutionary ("Trostsky" or "Lenin" or "Che").
He was initially a Eurocommunist and active in the Young Communists , where he met fellow YC Peter Mandelson, and also the National Union of Students where he met their President Charles Clarke. Aaronovich himself was president of the NUS from 1980 to 1982.
He started his media career as a television researcher and then producer for ITVs Weekend World and was founding editor of the BBCs On the Record in 1988.
Aaronovitch and Clarke identified with the "Broad Left" platform in the early 1980s, but, as Clarke and Mandelson moved to more mainstream politics, so did Aaronovitch. Aaronovitch moved to print journalism in 1995, writing for the Independent and its sister Sunday newspaper working at various times as chief leader writer, tv critic and columnist, until the end of 2002.
At the New Statesman he wrote a pseudonymous column purporting to be the diary of Lynton Charles , MP. (Charles Lynton are the given middle names of Tony Blair). He began contributing to The Guardian and Observer in 2003, where he was a columnist and occassional feature writer. In March 2005 it was announced that Aaronovitch was leaving the Guardian for a post at The Times.
Simultaneously, Aaronovitch has pursued a career as presenter of and contributor to various radio and television programmes, mainly for the BBC (such as Have I Got News For You). He invariably supports the current New Labour position on whichever subject he may be discussing in his Guardian column that week, and is fond of attacking more left-wing currents. He lent strong support to the war in Iraq.
Works
- Arson, Rape and Bloody Murder (Fourth Estate, 2002) ISBN 1841155721
- Paddling to Jerusalem: An Aquatic Tour of Our Small Country (Fourth Estate, 2000) ISBN 1841155403
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