Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú

Usually listeners to Over To You get in touch after they've heard a programme - but over the past few days we've had a number of emails from people complaining on the basis of what they've heard in a trail.

Opposing Obama is a two-part series, presented by Gary Younge (pictured), which will run in the Monday documentary slot on the World Service on 1 and 8 February.

But the title of the programme - and the on-air trails - have been enough to get people leaping to the defence of the American president. You can hear some of their comments in this week's programme.

But we've decided to wait until the programmes themselves have gone out before we discuss them on air. So if you listen to either or both of them - and we hope you will - do let us know what you think.

• Opposing Obama will be first broadcast on Monday 1st February. You can download this, and other documentaries by Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service, as a podcast. You can hear a preview clip of the documentary .

Issues of non-faith

Many of the emails and calls we receive consist of criticism or complaint, so it was a pleasant surprise to read an email from a regular listener, Ulric Schollaert from Brussels, Belgium, praising a recent edition of Heart and Soul.

This, of course, is the programme that looks at religious belief.Ìý But what Ulric particularly liked was that it featured people of no religious belief - secular Jews, who consider that they are Jewish, through birth, upbringing or whatever, but have no faith.

Ulric wanted to know if more atheists or non-believers might be heard on the programme in future - so, as you can hear in this week's Over To You, Rajan challenged the producer, Kristine Pommert, on the subject.

You can hear her reply on the programme - and Kristine has quite a vivid turn of phrase.Ìý

"In a sports programme, for example, we wouldn't want to hear every Saturday before the football comes round, somebody who says I don't like football, it's boring."Ìý

Which seems a fair point - although you may not agree.

Haiti emotion

And we also return to the subject of Haiti coverage in this week's programme.

Rajan's been talking to Mark Doyle, the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's International Development Correspondent, about the news coverage of the earthquake, and also about the challenges of separating the natural instincts of the reporter from feelings of personal sympathy for the victims of tragedy.

I hope you'll agree that it's an interesting listen.
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Cathy Packe is the Producer, Over To You

Over To You is your chance to have your say about the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service and
its programmes. It airs at 10:40 and 23:40 every Saturday, and atÌý02:40 on Sunday (GMT).Ìý

• Listen to previous episodes ofÌýOver To You
• Subscribe to the podcast
  
• Send the team your feedback by email (overtoyou@bbc.co.uk), telephone (44
  144 960 9000), SMS (447786 202006) or by leaving comments on this blog.

Picture credit: Getty

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Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service has begun broadcasting a daily 20-minute programme for Haiti. Transmission time is 9:10 to 9:30 local time (14:10 to 14:30 GMT). The programme will be produced and edited by a Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú team in Miami. In a special post for the Over To You blog, the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's Nick Miles describes the challenges he and his team have had to overcome to put out the lifeline programme:

It's been an extremely swift launch of a new radio service to say the least.

It was only about four days from the first ideas being jotted down on a piece of paper to the programme, Connexion Haiti, going on air.

But it had to be quick.

The need for information in Haiti is acute and many of the local stations are still off air so Connexion Haiti is providing an important service for Haitians.

When we arrived at the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú offices here in Miami last Thursday we already knew we had two Haitian Americans living in Miami who would present the programme. We also had a means of transmitting the programme via six FM frequencies across Haiti.

The frequencies are normally used by Radio France International for their broadcasts and they kindly stepped in to help the our programme gone on air. Connexion Haiti now also goes out on short wave and can he heard via the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Caribbean service website.

We broadcast a trial programme on Friday morning to test the signal and tell people how they could listen across Haiti and what they could expect from the programme.

So, with some of the logistics sorted out, we then had to decide what to put in Connexion Haiti.

A man listens to a radio at a refugee camp in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Picture: Associated Press

We knew this was would be a lifeline service for Haitians and we needed to provide as much up-to-the-minute information as possible about where people could find food aid, clean water, medical assistance and shelter. We pulled together that information from, among other sources, our Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú correspondents in Haiti along with the main aid organisations and the US military.

We set about getting a list of people we could interview in the Haitian language, Creole. We wanted to speak to as many people as we could who were working for the relief programme in Haiti to give an idea of where the new distribution points for aid were and where new field hospitals were situated.

But we've also used the interviews to broadcast appeals from the humanitarian organisations, specifically appeals for people to remain calm and to make sure they don't block any of the the main roads that might prevent aid getting through.

Connexion Haiti is also about hearing from ordinary Haitians caught up in the earthquake to find our how they're coping and what they need. To make this happen we set up a dedicated email address for our listeners, along with a number they could text and another where they could leave recorded messages. So far the response has been encouraging.

We've received texts emails and calls from Haitians saying that they're listening to the programme. Some have told us how they survived the earthquake while sadly members of their family did not. Others have left telephone numbers so that loved ones can get in touch.

Others have just emailed to say how important the service is for them because they know that the world cares about what's happened in Haiti. We've tried to broadcast as many of these messages as we can.

The programme's only twenty minutes long, and in that short time we want to get as much crucial information to people as possible but we've also tried to include items that show the people of Haiti that people around the world are thinking about them and taking concrete actions to help. In our first broadcast, for example, we ended the programme with the music of Haitian pop star Wyclef Jean playing at an international charity concert for Haiti.

He bellowed out his solidarity with his compatriots and perhaps that in some small way will give psychological boost to the people of Haiti who are living such desperate times.

Nick Miles is Producer, Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Connexion Haiti

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Over To You is your chance to have your say about the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service and
its programmes. It airs at 10:40 and 23:40 every Saturday, and atÌý02:40 on Sunday (GMT).Ìý

• Listen to previous episodes ofÌýOver To You
• Subscribe to the podcast
  
• Send the team your feedback by email (overtoyou@bbc.co.uk), telephone (44
  144 960 9000), SMS (447786 202006) or by leaving comments on this blog.

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The UN has described it as the worst disaster it has ever been involved in.

With an estimated 200,000 dead, a million and half displaced and an entire infrastructure flattened, it's not hard to see why earns that tragic description.

But what has it been like for broadcasters like the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service attempting to provide a "lifeline" service for those in Haiti? This is a situation where the normal principles of journalism are challenged because the role of broadcasters becomes more than just one of simply observing and documenting.

This has certainly been the experience of the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Caribbean unit which is providing extra programming for audiences in Haiti, in different languages.

This week the unit's head, Debbie Ransome, tells Over To You how it has reacted to the events of the past ten days or so and how it has balanced the role of news gathering with a desire to ease the suffering. It has often been the case that a Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú reporter has reached a devastated area before the aid agencies - so what then is the first responsibility of that individual? Listen if you can to this fascinating insight from Debbie on this week's programme.

Evacuees from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti wait to board a bus. Picture credit: Getty Images
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And still on Haiti, listener Francis Noel from Trinidad and Tobago contacted us to query the tone of some of the news reporting - in particular, references in the coverage to "looting" and "lawlessness" in the aftermath of the earthquake.

He is not alone - the head of the UN mission in Haiti, Edmond Mulet has been critical of the concentration on relatively few looting incidents, and described coverage of these as "exaggerated".

It all reminds me of the about the reporting of Hurricane Katrina, more than four years ago. "I hate the way they portray us in the media," he said. "If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family and they are looking for food."

We are planning to discuss the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's coverage of Haiti with a senior newsroom executive on a future programme, so if you have any thoughts or comments, make sure you let us have them.

History of the World
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And also in this week's programme, Over To You's producer, Cathy Packe, goes to the and takes a look behind the scenes of the making of a major new World Service series entitled "A History of the World in 100 Objects."Ìý

She told me how JD Hill, one of the senior curators involved in the programmes, gave her a piece of rock to hold.

It turned out to be a stone chopping tool, and was nearly two million years old - and as she inspected it more closely she could make out its multi-functional, albeit basic, design. And in the first programme in the series, presenter Neil McGregor uses a replica of it to carve his roast chicken!

Beat that Apple - I bet none of your fancy iPhone applications can do that!

Rajan Datar is the Presenter, Over To You

Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service will start broadcasting a lifeline programme for Haiti, in Creole, on Saturday, 23rd January. It will be a daily, 20-minute long programme. Transmission time is 9:10 to 9:30 local time (14:10 to 14:30 GMT). The programme will be produced and edited by a Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú team in Miami.
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Over To You is your chance to have your say about the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service and
its programmes. It airs at 10:40 and 23:40 every Saturday, and atÌý02:40 on Sunday (GMT).Ìý

• Listen to previous episodes ofÌýOver To You
• Subscribe to the podcast
  
• Send the team your feedback by email (overtoyou@bbc.co.uk), telephone (44
  144 960 9000), SMS (447786 202006) or by leaving comments on this blog.

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With President Obama's first anniversary in the White House approaching this week, we thought it would be interesting to look at how Kenyan media coverage of the first African-American president has changed since he took office.Ìý

'Yes we can': the scrawled slogan of U.S. President Barack Obama is displayed on the wall of a shack in Nairobi, Kenya. Picture: Getty Images

First, Rajan spoke to Henry Owur, the Foreign Editor of the country's leading daily newspaper, the .

He told Rajan that popularity for the American president remains very strong - although he said that what the people of his country really want is for Air Force One to land in Nairobi, delivering President Obama for a visit. You can hear a short extract from his interview in the programme, but you can hear the rest of what he had to say by clicking below.

In contrast, Mark Mardell, the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's North America editor, reflects on the President's dwindling popularity and the possible reasons for it - among other things, the influence of the right-wing media including Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV.

"Very professional, very slick and very, very negative towards the President," is how Mark put it to Rajan.

Dangers of war

We also take a look at the dangers of war reporting.

Last weekend, the Defence Correspondent of one of the Sunday newspapers here in Britain, the Sunday Mirror, was killed in Afghanistan; two weeks ago a Canadian journalist died in another part of that country, and in both incidents there were military deaths, too.

Both journalists were embedded, which means that they live and work alongside an active military unit. The idea is that they get closer to the action - but of course it means they are also closer to potential danger.

The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen, himself a reporting veteran of a number of conflicts, talks about the advantages and disadvantages of being embedded rather than working independently. And his assessment of the risks of embedding is chilling.

"Being embedded does not guarantee safety, because you share the risks of the military," he tells Rajan.

Review what we do

By the way, we're looking for listeners who might be interested in reviewing some of the programmes on the World Service, and discussing their thoughts with the people responsible for making the programmes.

I don't necessarily just mean being critical of what you hear - you may want to find out how a programme came to be made, or what gave the producer the idea for it in the first place. So if you think this is something you'd like to get involved in, you can post a message here, or, better still, email us at overtoyou@bbc.co.uk.

Cathy Packe is the Producer, Over To You

Over To You is your chance to have your say about the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service and its programmes. It airs at 10:40 and 23:40 every Saturday, and atÌý02:40 on Sunday (GMT).Ìý

• Listen to previous episodes ofÌýOver To You
• Subscribe to the podcast
  
• Send the team your feedback by email (overtoyou@bbc.co.uk), telephone (44 144 960 9000), SMS (447786 202006) or by leaving comments on this blog.

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Football, football, glorious football... you're going to be hearing a lot about the beautiful game this year, not least because the World Cup is being held in South Africa in June and July.

But before that, the World Service has got a full team out covering the in Angola from this weekend.

Angolan fans celebrate prior to a match between Egypt and Angola in February 2008. This year's competition starts on Sunday. Picture credit: Getty

And there's a four-part documentary series looking at the history of soccer on the African continent currently running on the English-language network.

We talk to the man who's involved in both of these projects - presenter and commentator Farayi Mungazi.
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It may be a celebration for the fans and players, but spare a thought for the 1500 or so journalists like Farayi negotiating the logistical obstacles of reporting from an overburdened Luanda at this time - especially for those who apparently will be commentating on a mobile phone back to eager audiences!

Actually, as I stare out across a bleak icy landscape here in wintry London, I say don't pity those guys too much.

As a huge footy fan who has had the pleasure of seeing this tournament before, I know where I'd rather be right now.

Yemen under the microscope

When you live in the poorest nation in the Middle East, with civil conflict raging in both the North and South of the country, how does it feel when you are suddenly under the microscope from the world's media and ?

Well as we find out in this week's Over To You, for most citizens of Yemen, probably not much. Not just because you have other more pressing issues to worry about but because the largely state-controlled media there hasn't let out much coverage of the story.
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After the much-reported arrest of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on the 25th of December for attempting to blow up an Amsterdam to Detroit flight, Yemen came under the spotlight because Abdulmutallab said he was trained by Al-Qaeda operatives there.

But, as Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú media analyst Steve Metcalf tells us, in spite of nominal press freedom written into the constitution, you have to read between the lines to know what's going on in Yemen.

Lessons from Africa Have Your Say

Also in this week's programme we find out what lessons have been learned as a result of the controversy of the Africa Have Your Say programme, which examined the Ugandan Parliament's anti-homosexual proposals.

The furore was caused by the stark headline on the programme's website inviting comment from listeners. Find out what the Editor of African productions, David Stead, made of the whole fuss and how it has informed his views on tackling such subjects on the programme in the future.

Rajan Datar is the Presenter, Over To You

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Over To You is your chance to have your say about the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service and its programmes. It airs at 10:40 and 23:40 every Saturday, and atÌý02:40 on Sunday (GMT).Ìý

• Listen to previous episodes ofÌýOver To You
• Subscribe to the podcast
  
• Send the team your feedback by email (overtoyou@bbc.co.uk), telephone (44 144 960 9000), SMS (447786 202006) or by leaving comments on this blog.

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Making predictions about how global media will develop is usually a fool's game.

Huge leaps in technology have occurred in the last few years. Three years ago, Twitter and the iPhone did not exist. The iPhone was released in mid-2007. Thirty months later it now accounts for half of all global mobile data traffic. Twitter is a powerful tool of social media, now a huge influence on election campaigns; most notably in the US and Iran.

One of the many pictures from Iran posted first on Twitter instead of traditional picture sources. Photo credit: SHADISHD173/AFP/Getty Images

In that period, global broadband subscribers have doubled from 200 million to over 400 million. Mobile phone penetration in emerging markets has grown 321 per cent, compared to 46 per cent in developed countries.

It's predicted that by the end of 2012, 90 per cent of the next billion mobile phone owners will come from the global south. There will be 300 million smart phones and 200 million extra global broadband subscribers.

There's a lot of change on the horizon.

But here are some things that are constant. I expect devices will become more powerful, more portable and multi-functional. The speed of change will always take your breath away and the ways in which audiences will choose to access media content will always surprise.

Audience expectations are growing at a rapid pace in the news arena; not least in their appetite to contribute to debates and campaigns, and their willingness to consume news when and how they choose.

It means a huge amount of data and information will be whizzing around the world. Issues that we once thought of as being local or national will quickly become global talking points. They'll be instant news, instant opinion, debates that generate more heat than light; and more opportunity for misunderstanding.

This brings huge challenges for the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú as we try to respond to the seismic changes in the global media landscape.

But we have high aspirations. It remains the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's aim to provide the most trusted, relevant and high quality international news in the world.

We want to continue to be an indispensable service of independent analysis, with an international perspective, which promotes greater understanding of complex issues. We want to continue to be a hub for challenging, inspiring global dialogue and debate; the exchange of views and ideas across international borders and cultural divides.

The key words here are 'independent' and 'international'. We serve no political or commercial interests, only those of our audiences.

Our international perspectives on the big issues that concern us all are a vital quality in a world where global forces are ever-more powerful.

The engine of that aim is the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's newsgathering machine. It is probably the biggest in the world and the envy of all those in international broadcasting.

The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's newsrooms and language services are rightly valued by all by our audiences - for its cool judgement, expertise and its unflagging insistence on "getting it right".

We believe that this kind of expertise and analysis enables people to make sense of their increasingly complex world, and thus empowered, lead more fulfilling lives. No matter what the future holds.

Peter Horrocks is the Director of the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service.

Over To You is your chance to have your say about the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service and its programmes. It airs at 10:40 and 23:40 every Saturday, and atÌý02:40 on Sunday (GMT).Ìý

• Listen to previous episodes ofÌýOver To You
• Subscribe to the podcast
  
• Send the team your feedback by email (overtoyou@bbc.co.uk), telephone (44 144 960 9000), SMS (447786 202006) or by leaving comments on this blog.

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