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Alistair Burnett

Other hot spots


More aid workers were killed in July in the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur than in the entire preceding three years - that was the stark statement from the UN and aid agencies this week.

The World TonightThere has also been the killing of 17 aid workers in Sri Lanka - both of these have received a lot less attention from the world's media than would have been the case if attention wasn't focussed on the Middle East crisis.

My colleague, Craig Oliver of the ten o'clock TV news, blogged recently to explain why the Middle East got more attention than Congo and Iraq in his programme. I could have written the same for The World Tonight.

But there is a danger in this - which came up in a conversation I was having with an MP the other day - which is that while the world's attention is focussed on the Middle East, others may take advantage to get up to no good in the hope no-one will notice much.

Apart from Darfur and Sri Lanka - both of which have seen more violence in the past few weeks, other former hot spots are getting warmer again. In East Timor, the Australian-led peacekeepers have still to restore complete order and 150,000 people (more then 10% of the entire population) remain in camps living in very poor conditions.

And closer to home in Kosovo, there are growing fears that there could be a return to violence because it looks like the international community is going to make the province independent and oblige the Serbs in the north of the province - where they remain a majority - to leave the country they were born in and want to continue living in.

On the World Tonight, we made space for the latter last Thursday (listen to it here) but not yet made space for the former. Why? Because we've been giving so much space to the Middle East.

Alistair Burnett is editor of the World Tonight

Alistair Burnett is editor of the World Tonight

Peter Rippon

Is news funny?


One of the programmes I edit, Broadcasting House, really irritates some listeners. There is a small but vocal section of Radio Four devotees who just do not accept the fundamental proposition - that you can have fun as well as do serious news on the same programme.

Broadcasting House logoThankfully the show's healthy audience figures convince me that such views are a minority. So recently Mark Doyle has exposed child labour in the mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo (listen here), but at the same time we've made a theatrical arrest (listen here).

Getting the balance and tone right is hard. In fact it is one of the hardest things we do. It regularly dominates our editorial discussions and we get it wrong sometimes. In fact, if you want to see the blood drain from any reporter's face you do not need to send them off to doorstep the relatives of the victim of some terrible tragedy. As they leave the building on a story just say "have some fun with it!" and watch them wilt.

It may be hard but I believe passionately we must continue to do it. Radio Four is often criticised for being too stuffy, too aloof and too elitist. Humour is a crucial weapon in countering such perceptions.

Peter Rippon is editor of PM and Broadcasting House

Peter Rippon is editor of World at One, PM and Broadcasting House

Host

How to say: J. Kellenberger

  • Host
  • 9 Aug 06, 11:11 AM

A guide to words and names in the news, from Martha Figueroa-Clark of the 大象传媒 Pronunciation Unit.

"Today's pronunciation is for the Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, - a Swiss national with a German name.

"It is pronounced YAA-kop KELL-uhn-bair-guhr (-air as in 'hair'; -g as in 'get'). This pronunciation was given to us by the Swiss Embassy."

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