Broadcasters like to remind us these days of how lucky we are to live in an age of 24-hour news. Instant access to global events, they say, means we are better informed about our planet than ever before, with front-row seats at the theatre of history. Perhaps. But after Britney Spears’ marital break-up is reported for the fourth time in an hour, or yet another tragic day unfolds in the Middle East, the brave new world of 24/7 news coverage starts to wear thin. A diet of bland offerings has left us with an appetite for more meat on the bones, more spice in the sauce.
Which is probably why From Our Own Correspondent continues to be one of the most popular programmes on BBC radio. For 50 years, international correspondents have been filing reports to FOOC (as it’s affectionately known), offering a closer look behind the headlines or a glimpse into the way of life in another part of the world. It’s this enduring formula which is celebrated in a selection of reports that give readers a flavour of FOOC.
Many of the contributors’ names will be well-known to BBC viewers and listeners. John Simpson is in here, as well as Martin Bell, Charles Wheeler and Bridget Kendal. Others may be less familiar, but all clearly relish the chance to break free from the constraints of day-to-day journalism.
The programme encourages its contributors to show a more relaxed face, and to let some of their personal emotions filter into their dispatches. In a report from Iran, for example, Natalia Antelava confesses to mixed feelings after witnessing the public hanging of a serial child killer: “Part of me was appalled by this shameless exhibition of death, by the sheer excitement it was causing. But it was something else that I felt most uncomfortable with. And that was my own feelings of approval.”
Reporting from Darfur, Hilary Andersson lets rip at the United Nations’ mealy-mouthed response to the massacre of Sudan’s black Africans. "Surely if genocide, the ultimate crime against humanity, matters, we should at least have the courage to define where it is happening and quickly, and then act, or admit we live in a world that tolerates it.”
Meanwhile, Diana Goodman’s maternal feelings bubble to the surface during a visit to a Russian orphanage, where children, most of them perfectly healthy, are treated like mental retards. “Each night now before I go to sleep I think of the pinched and lonely little faces of the children at the Internat as they lie staring into the darkness in their narrow beds.”
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!