Roger Cook, pioneering investigative journalist and ITV broadcaster, dies aged 83

Roger Cook, who turned the doorstep confrontation into a staple of modern television reporting, has died aged 83 after a short illness. His family said he “died peacefully on Saturday” and described him as “a beloved husband and father.”

The New Zealand-born broadcaster joined ITV in 1985 and became best known for The Cook Report, which ran from 1987 to 1999. Over 16 series and more than 120 episodes, the programme became the most popular current-affairs show on British television at the time, with audiences reported at more than 10 million and, in some accounts, over 12 million.

ITV said Cook’s “ground-breaking approach to investigative journalism” made him “one of broadcasting’s most trusted and respected figures,” and said he helped expose criminal wrongdoing and injustice while driving “important and lasting changes in the law.” That influence reached well beyond the programme itself. Cook was credited with inventing the doorstep interview technique, a style that put subjects face to face with a reporter on camera and set the template for a more aggressive form of accountability journalism.

The method he helped popularise is now common across television and digital reporting, where direct confrontation can produce answers that formal requests often do not. It also defines the ethical boundary the profession still debates: whether a reporter is pressing for accountability in the public interest, or ambushing a subject for effect. Cook’s career showed both the power and the discomfort of that approach, and why it remains so influential.

Cook’s work was formally recognised in 1997 when he received a BAFTA special award for 25 years of outstanding quality investigative reporting. Reports said he had faced repeated cancer battles and had been treated at Royal United Hospitals Bath before his death. Tributes from broadcasters described him as fearless, trusted, respected and a trailblazer, reflecting a career that spanned five decades and left a durable mark on investigative television.