Barbara Plett Usher

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.[3]

Barbara Plett Usher
Born
Barbara Plett[1]

1967 (age 55–56)[1]
Manitoba, Canada[1]
EducationBachelor of Journalism at Carleton University[1]
Occupation(s)Journalist, News Editor, Presenter[1]
EmployerBBC[1]
SpouseGraham Usher (died 2013)[2]

Since 2021 she has been the BBC's State Department Correspondent, based in Washington, D.C., USA.

Education

Plett Usher graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in 1991 with a bachelor's degree in journalism.[1]

Personal life

Plett Usher was married to Graham Usher, the former Jerusalem correspondent of The Economist magazine.[4] He died on August 8, 2013, at age 54 of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.[2][5][6]

Career

She joined the BBC as a freelancer from Cairo in 1995 and became its Middle East correspondent by 2000.[1]

She then went on to cover the death of the Syrian President Hafez al Assad in 2000[1] and to do much reporting under siege in Ramallah in 2002.[1] Her career took her to Iraq in 2003.[1]

Plett Usher worked as BBC correspondent in Jerusalem before being transferred to Islamabad in 2009.[1] She was the BBC's United Nations correspondent since at least 2012 [3][7]

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.[8] 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.[9]

See also

References
  1. "Barbara Plett • Biography & Images". TV Newsroom. 29 November 2009.
  2. "Graham Usher - Middle East Research and Information Project". merip.org.
  3. Iran says sanctions 'discredited'. 19 May 2010.
  4. Gross, Tom (November 28, 2005). "BBC sanctions reporter who cried for Arafat (& “Hitler” running in Fatah primaries)." URL accessed on December 30, 2006.
  5. "Remembering Graham Usher". jadaliyya.com.
  6. Pomegranate The Middle East (15 August 2013). "Graham Usher: A correspondent of integrity and courage". The Economist. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
  7. "Barbara Plett". pri.org.
  8. Plett, Barbara (30 September 2004) "Yasser Arafat's unrelenting journey", BBC News, 30 October 2004, URL accessed on October 22, 2006
  9. Gibson, Owen (November 26, 2005). BBC bias complaint upheld. The Guardian. URL accessed on January 8, 2007.
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