Barbara Plett Usher
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Barbara Plett Usher is a Canadian-born UK journalist with experience in the Middle East and the UN. She has worked for the BBC in Jerusalem, Islamabad and the United Nations.[1]
From 2021 she has been the BBC's State Department correspondent, based in Washington, D.C., USA. Since 2024 she has been the BBC's Africa Editor, based in Nairobi, Kenya.
Early life and education
Plett Usher was born in Manitoba, Canada, in 1967.[2]
She graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in 1991 with a bachelor's degree in journalism.[2]
Career
She joined the BBC as a freelancer from Cairo in 1995 and became its Middle East correspondent by 2000.[2]
She then went on to cover the death of the Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in 2000[2] and to do much reporting under siege in Ramallah in 2002.[2] Her career took her to Iraq in 2003.[2]
Plett Usher worked as BBC correspondent in Jerusalem before being transferred to Islamabad in 2009.[2] She was the BBC's United Nations correspondent since at least 2012.[1][3]
During the BBC programme From Our Own Correspondent broadcast on 30 September 2004, Plett Usher said she cried when she saw Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat being taken to hospital during his terminal illness.[4] This led to suggestions that the BBC was biased. After many complaints from viewers the BBC Governors' Programme Complaints Committee ruled that Plett Usher had breached editorial guidelines on due impartiality and the BBC's director of News, Helen Boaden, apologised for an editorial misjudgment.[5]
Since 2024 she has been the BBC's Africa Editor, based in Nairobi, Kenya.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
Personal life
In 2003 Plett married Graham Usher, the Palestine correspondent of The Economist magazine.[6][7] The couple moved to Pakistan in 2005, and to New York in 2009. Graham Usher died on 8 August 2013, at age 54, of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.[8][9][6]
See also
References
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- ↑ a b Iran says sanctions 'discredited'. 19 May 2010.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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- ↑ Plett, Barbara (30 September 2004) "Yasser Arafat's unrelenting journey", BBC News, 30 October 2004, URL accessed on October 22, 2006
- ↑ Gibson, Owen (November 26, 2005). BBC bias complaint upheld. The Guardian. URL accessed on January 8, 2007.
- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Gross, Tom (November 28, 2005). "BBC sanctions reporter who cried for Arafat (& “Hitler” running in Fatah primaries)." URL accessed on December 30, 2006.
- ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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External links
- Pages with script errors
- Pages with reference errors
- BBC newsreaders and journalists
- British journalists
- British women journalists
- British radio presenters
- British women radio presenters
- Carleton University alumni
- 1967 births
- Living people
- BBC World News
- Canadian women television journalists
- Canadian expatriates in England
- Canadian people of Iranian descent
- Canadian radio hosts
- Canadian women radio hosts
- Journalists from Manitoba