Hamish McDonald - "The truth is?" - video

STRIPPING down to your underwear is one way to pull an audience.

But when you've spent more than a decade building a reputation for serious journalism, it wasn't quite what Channel 10's Hamish MacDonald had in mind when he pitched the idea for a new current affairs program, The Truth Is?

It's not what you'd expect from news veterans such as George Negus or Ray Martin (some may say thankfully), but is a great snapshot of the irreverent and unorthodox approach the Logie-nominated host of Ten Late News brings to the series he hopes will set a new standard for more personal reportage.

After the axing of 6.30 with George Negus, the show's breakout star MacDonald was given the opportunity to create his own documentary-style program designed to tell the stories behind the news.

Experience as a foreign correspondent with Al Jazeera and the UK's Channel 4 has taught the 31-year-old that sometimes the best yarns are left "on the road" and it was his ambition with The Truth Is? to capture the more eccentric or engaging tales he had only previously shared with his mates at the pub. The challenge for the TV industry, he says, is to "find ways to engage the audience and show them the world is a bloody exciting place".

Baring almost all in the first episode, as he prepared to tour the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, was still a leap of faith.

"I'm hugely nervous," MacDonald says about his underwear-clad appearance, "and I will never again go to work without a decent pair of undies on."

MacDonald's charm goes a long way to convincing many of his subjects to tell their unusual stories.

"It's not the usual shouty, bombastic delivery you see on most factual TV shows," he says, "it's more intimate and I really hope it works."

The Truth Is?, Channel 10, Monday, 8.30pm.