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The Editors

Editors in tray
Craig Oliver

African image


The key criticism of nearly all journalism about Africa is that we only hear about the continent's problems - usually by parachuting into an area for a quick hit. Certainly reports can be templated and cliched - how many times have you seen a TV package begin with a close-up of a crying baby surrounded by flies and finishing with a reporter standing in front of a group of people with whom s/he has failed to engage?

BBC Ten O'Clock News logoThe worry that we we sometimes fail to treat Africans as real human beings with many of the same dreams and desires as we have in the West prompted the commissioning of two reports from Fergal Keane and cameraman Darren Conway on the people of Turkana in Northern Kenya. They are nomads - but their lifestyle is threatened by almost constant drought. It would have been easy to focus just on that - but we knew there would also be stories of courage and hope - and felt only by living with them for a week would we be able to fully understand their situation.

Fergal was keen - but we also talked about how what we were doing could be deeply patronising - he could end up looking like a tourist. With help from Oxfam the team set off for Turkana - the combination of stunning pictures and subtle scripting helped us to avoid the major traps.

fergal.jpgThe first piece focused on Kevina Esinyan and her children (you can watch it here). They walked in the blistering heat to the water pump, watched as her children did their homework and heard her hopes and fears. The result was a powerful sense of a remarkable and proud woman living in extraordinary circumstances.

The team spent the last few days with the men fishing on the lake which recedes year by year - (you can watch that piece here). It is equally successful in showing how the Turkana are diversifying rather than depending on foreign aid.

Craig Oliver is editor of BBC News at Six and BBC News at Ten

Andrew Steele

End of midterms


So it’s all over bar the shouting – the US midterms have transformed politics in Washington, and President Bush must add a new phrase to his political vocabulary – bipartisan cooperation.

The BBC’s team in Washington, winding down after a week surviving on black coffee and adrenalin, are taking stock of the new landscape. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are the new stars of Washington’s political constellation. It remains to be seen just how well soon-to-be House Speaker Pelosi and the presumed Senate Majority Leader Reid will work with President Bush.

But what next? The departure of Donald Rumsfeld puts the spotlight back on the President’s Iraq policy and how it might change. The independent Iraq Study Group has been charged with finding new ideas – it’s expected to report in early December. New ideas are urgently needed.

The long thinkers are already looking to 2008 and which political figures have burnished their presidential ambitions during the midterm campaign. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is still the odds-on favourite to take her party’s nomination, although Barack Obama is a long bet.

The picture is far less clear on the Republican side -- it’s much easier to point to White House hopefuls who have crashed and burned in recent months. So who’s left in the field? Arizona Senator John McCain is still standing, and Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has a strong following.

The next two years will be fascinating. Any viewers, listeners or readers who might wonder why the BBC has devoted such energy and time this week to reports from the US, need only consider how wide the implications of this week's events might be - not just the US, but Iraq, the wider Middle East, the UK - and perhaps even the premiership of Tony Blair.

Andrew Steele is the BBC's bureau chief in Washington

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