Ellen Wallace
A couple weeks ago I received a message from Lucy Walker, who will be known to many readers as the former director of WRG-FM radio and a BBC reporter of long standing. She asked if GenevaLunch could help the BBC keep Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston in the news, in the hope that this will help gain his release. He disappeared two months ago after leaving his office and it is assumed he was abducted.
Johnston is a name known to anyone who has listened to BBC news on WRG over the years. He is a journalist much admired throughout the media world for the excellent quality of his reporting from a part of the world where it is never easy to be a journalist. This week he won the highest award at the London Press Club’s annual awards.
I held off writing about Johnston because GenevaLunch was in the midst of changing platforms and Google lost sight of us for three weeks, which is normal – but I wanted to make sure as many people as possible see this. GenevaLunch is a regional news site, but our community is international and the BBC has a huge following in in the Lake Geneva region. News about difficult corners of the world is essential for many GL readers because their work in international organizations and the corporate world takes them to these places. More than that, all of us have moved beyond our home nations, and we live and work in close proximity with people from around the world. We have learned to care about what happens elsewhere and we have learned to appreciate the work of those who help us know what is going on, especially in the world’s hot spots.
This is a plea from the editor to remember Lucy Walker’s request: please think about and continue to follow the story of Alan Johnston’s disappearance, as your support could make the difference to his safe return. To make this easier, we will post a link on this community page to the BBC page that follows the story. Please visit it often.
GenevaLunch, 11 May 2007.
Filed under: Media
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.