70 Years of Correspondence

“To be a foreign correspondent is to inhabit a world in which abroad is home, in which communications are lifeblood and in which ‘the story’ is elevated to the status of a god that must, at whatever cost, be treated with reverence and with constant attention to its capricious changes of mood or substance.” 

From Our Own Correspondent, always known in BBC-speak as FOOC, has been a fixture of the radio schedules for seven decades. It was first broadcast on the BBC Home Service on Sunday 25 September 1955 when announcer Colin Doran introduced as follows: "This is the BBC Home Service. From our own correspondent. We are broadcasting now the first of a new series of programmes in which BBC correspondents will deal with current affairs as seen from their own posts in various parts of the world," There followed reports from six BBC correspondents, three based in the States and three European-based. This actually represented nearly 50% of all the overseas correspondents the BBC employed at that time as there were only 13 of them. (1)

For many years the programme was introduced by staff announcers but since 1998 former foreign correspondent Kate Adie has been the regular presenter. FOOC is also heard on the World Service (2) and since 1990 has been produced separately from the domestic version with its own presenters. Again it was World Service announcers that introduced each edition, until about 2006 when broadcast journalists started to present it. More recent presenters have included Alan Johnston, Owen Bennett-Jones and, since 2012, Pascale Harter.   

Here’s a Radio 4 example of FOOC with announcer Laurie Macmillan presenting. This edition dates from Saturday 27 December and includes reports from Tim Sebastian in Warsaw, Philip Short in Peking (now Beijing), John Thorne in Johannesburg, David Willey (who would become the BBC’s longest-serving correspondent with over 40 years based in Italy) in Rome and Bob Jobbins (later the Head of the Arabic Service) in Cairo.

     

In my last blog post on FOOC, back in September 2015, I included a recording from 1985 when the programme marked its 30th anniversary. Now, ten years on I’m going back another five years to the 25th anniversary in 1980. This programme titled Foreign Correspondent was introduced by Ian McDougall. Ian had been a BBC foreign correspondent since 1949 initially posted to Paris but eventually filing more than 10,000 reports from 40 countries. From 1979 until his retirement in 1988 he was the editor and presenter of Radio 3’s current affairs programme Six Continents.   

In Foreign Correspondent Ian talks to, as the Radio Times billing reads, “some of those who were ‘in at the beginning’ about the excitements, the frustrations and the challenges of being a foreign correspondent for the BBC”. 

In an accompanying article (above) by Vivien Lipschitz there is mention of the early difficulties of filing reports, the changing nature of foreign reporting and the increasing demands for more and more reports – at this time most correspondents tended to work in either radio or television with bi-media reporting coming back in from the mid-90s.

Contributing to Foreign Correspondent are: Angus McDermid on communication problems, Ivor Jones recalls the Hungarian revolution, Christopher Serpell with tales of Cuba, Gerald Priestland recalls one of his dispatches been sent off in a beer bottle, Charles Wheeler who had a report tapped out in Morse code, Erik de Mauny on censorship in Russia, Anthony Lawrence, the first editor of FOOC when he was Foreign Duty Editor, on finally getting into China, Douglas Stuart on the aftermath of the JFK assassination and Kenneth Matthews, the BBC’s first ever foreign correspondent, on the start of FOOC. 

If this all sounds rather like a gentlemen’s club that’s because the BBC was still six years away from appointing Diana Goodman as their first female foreign correspondent who was based in Bonn. She would be joined just a few weeks later by Elizabeth Blunt to cover West Africa and in 1989 by Bridget Kendall who was posted to Moscow.

Foreign Correspondent was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Monday 29 September 1980 and repeated on Saturday 4 October 1980.

 

To mark the 70^th anniversary of FOOC the BBC is recording a special programme at the Radio Theatre on 1 October for broadcast in December. Hosted by former BBC Middle East correspondent and Today presenter Anna Foster, the event will feature a panel of special guests including From Our Own Correspondent presenter Kate Adie and current senior BBC foreign correspondents.

Further listening

Here are a number of Radio 4 and World Service programmes that mark the 50th and 60th anniversaries of FOOC. 

The Archive Hour: Celebrating 50 Years of From Our Own Correspondent

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kh3y

Fifty Years of FOOC – The Americas with Bridget Kendall

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03js6p7

Fifty Years of FOOC – Middle East with Lyse Doucett

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03js6ps

Fifty Years of FOOC – Europe with Caroline Wyatt

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03js6q1

Fifty Years of FOOC – Asia with Mark Tully

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03js6pw

Fifty Years of FOOC – Africa with Mark Doyle

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03js6q6

From Our Own Correspondent: 60th Anniversary Special with Owen Bennett-Jones

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b069xbmd

Archive on 4: From Our Rome Correspondent (on David Willey)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01fhlqd

There are over 1,000 editions of FOOC on BBC Sounds on BBC Radio 4 and 2,000 on the BBC World Service page.

(1) This was the number of correspondents posted abroad for fixed terms and included a resident correspondent at the UN headquarters in New York. If a major foreign news story broke the BBC could also send other home based correspondents to the area.

(2) I can’t trace exactly when the World Service also started to carry the programme other than some time in the 1960s. When FOOC started in the 50s the General Overseas Service equivalent was called Special Despatch.