Emily Buchanan

Emily Buchanan has worked for over 20 years at the BBC, beginning as a radio producer in political programmes. 

In 1994 for BBC 2’s ‘Assignment’ programme, she made a film about female infanticide in India, Let Her Die, which won the ‘Golden Nymph’ at the Monte Carlo Television Festival.  She also had two award nominations; by Amnesty International for her documentary The Disposables about the killing of the under-class in Colombia, and by the One World Broadcasting Trust for a film about the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, a special bank which lends mainly to women.  Also, for ‘Assignment’ she made The Baby Trade, about corruption in international adoptions in Paraguay. 

In 1995 she became the BBC’s Developing World Correspondent. For the Nine O’Clock News, she travelled extensively around South America, Africa and Asia highlighting issues of international debt, disease and poverty - one of her more harrowing trips was going to the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in Zaire.

Emily Buchanan then became the BBC’s Religious Affairs correspondent.

In 2001 she won the Radio Documentary Award at the One World Broadcasting Trust for a Radio 4 programme Seeds of Hate about the impact of war-time rape on Muslim women in Bosnia.

For 5 years she presented the Radio 4 series about global radio stations, ‘A World in Your Ear’, as well as ‘Reporter’s Notes’, the series where foreign correspondents talk about their lives and the music that accompanied them on their travels. She is now a World Affairs Correspondent based in London, and has presented the political debate programme ‘Head to Head’ on News 24, and ‘Have Your Say’ on BBC World.

In 2005 Emily wrote From China with Love – The Long Road to Motherhood about adopting two girls from China, and she presented ‘China Girl’ a Radio 4 series about adoption from China broadcast in July 2007.

 Related Sessions

Sunday 2 November 2008, 11.00am Henry Moore Gallery
Adopting orthodoxies



 Festival Buzz

"Taking part in the Battle of Ideas is like putting your brain in a pencil sharpener. It works better as a result."
George Brock, Saturday Editor, The Times