After graduation he worked as a newspaper reporter for the
Sunday Tribune and later with
The Irish Press in Dublin, covering finance, sports and news. He undertook his first
investigative reporting into the
Law Society investigating allegations of restrictive practises. He then wrote similar investigative articles for
The Guardian,
The Daily Mail,
The Sunday Express and the
New Statesman. I think print can be very reactive. It just means getting on the end of a phone and getting a quote. For TV it doesn't happen unless it's filmed and that means you have to be there. Our particular brand is called Show Me television - we don't tell you, we show you. The first series of
MacIntyre Investigates for the BBC caused some controversy when it was accused of falsifying video evidence and
blackmail during its exposé of the
Elite modelling agency. The BBC was sued for defamation, avoided court through a settlement, and issued a statement admitting that MacIntyre had misrepresented the agency in his programme, but that they stood by him. Towards the end of his second series of
MacIntyre Investigates for the BBC, he came under more open criticism from internal sources. The three programmes were suggested to have cost as much as £2.5 million, while an episode of
Panorama by contrast typically cost £100,000 to £150,000. In return, BBC One's then controller
Lorraine Heggessey expected
MacIntyre Investigates to deliver the ratings, a pressure that other investigative journalists believed undermined its editorial integrity. In 2007, MacIntyre set out to create a documentary because he wanted to "do a
Michael Moore for gangsters," in penetrating a world of
super-rich villains who enjoy a life of luxury with no legitimate means of support: "It was interesting to make a 180-degree turn from my covert-reporting heritage and have full access. I wanted to build a bond." The resulting production became a film with the title
A Very British Gangster which centred on the life of
Manchester-based gangster and
hit man Dominic Noonan, whose brother
Desmond Noonan was stabbed to death during filming. MacIntyre directed the anti-smoking commercials for the SMOKE IS POISON campaign. This series included the
Polonium commercial that the British Government banned out of sensitivity to the family of the murdered Russian
dissident Alexander Litvinenko who was killed using the substance. From 6 April 2008 MacIntyre has presented a weekly radio show on
BBC Radio 5 Live. In June 2009, both he and his wife were attacked and beaten at the Cloud 9 wine bar in
Hampton Court in what is believed to have been a revenge attack, linked to the prosecution of Jason Marriner and other Chelsea hooligans in the 1999 documentary. In 2010, MacIntyre briefly co-hosted
ITV1's local news show
London Tonight, stepping down after six months in the post. He writes for
Sunday World and is a
visiting professor of criminology at
Birmingham City University in which capacity he has been a panelist on the Crime Bites Podcast.
Dancing on Ice In 2009, MacIntyre took part in the
fourth series of the television series
Dancing on Ice. He and his pro-skating partner
Florentine Houdiniere were the runners up.
The Jump MacIntyre took part in the first series of
Channel 4 reality series
The Jump in 2014. Initially signed as a reserve in case of injury to other participants, he took the place of the incapacitated
Melinda Messenger from the fifth night (30 January 2014). He finished the series second to
Joe McElderry, who had also initially been a reserve contestant. ==See also==