Thirty years on, Michael Buerks broadcast remains a watershed moment in crisis reporting, but what is its lasting legacy?
The 30th anniversary of a key moment in modern TV journalism will be marked on 23 October: Michael Buerks broadcast of a biblical famine, filmed in a remote part of northern Ethiopia. The images shot by Kenyan cameraman Mohammed Amin, together with Buerks powerful words, produced one of the most famous television reports of the late 20th century.
Long before satellite, social media and YouTube, the BBC news item from Ethiopia went viral transmitted by 425 television stations worldwide. It was even broadcast on a major US news channel, without revoicing Buerks original English commentary something that was almost unheard of. Bob Geldof viewed the news that day and, as a result, that famine report eventually became the focus of a new style of celebrity fundraising. This produced another key television memory, the Live Aid extravaganza in July 1985, which itself became a transforming moment in modern media history.
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