1/20/2006

The BBC's "From Our Own Correspondent"

Since I began "podcatching" a few months ago--that is, listening to podcasts downloaded from the Web, one of my favorites has become the BBC's "From Our Own Correspondent". For fifty years the "Beeb" has allowed its foreign reporters to let off steam or tell a story through these spoken-word personal essays. "FooC," as its fans like to call it, provides listeners with revealing, eye-level perspectives on regions of the globe where U.S.-based reporters never tread--the lost Hejaz railway in Arabia, a re-born school in Monrovia, the wind-swept Kazakh capital of Almaty, and the teeming streets of Mumbai. The world listens to these reports--one correspondent recalled being summoned to the office of the late Israeli prime minister Golda Meir after he described her legs as "stumpy" in his FooC broadcast. I listen to the segments to keep up with news from around the world, and to discover good ideas for Outside magazine to cover. If you want to take a wider look around, check it out.
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