The broadcaster, 64, on
racism, impartiality and surviving cancer
The
BBC turned me down three times at the start of my career, and I’m grateful. Had I joined then, I’d have entered a very white world, dominated by people from a certain class and set of institutions. Taking a
Job at South magazine informed how I report on international affairs to this day. The globe looks different depending on where you’re standing.
Swapping the mango trees of Ghana for an inner-city
British Catholic boarding school, aged 11, was a shock to my system. In the showers, the other boys with tan-lines made jokes about how I was brown all over. Unsure of what was happening, I laughed along with them. Today I’d call what I experienced racism, but back then I didn’t have that language.