Rageh Omaar: Difference between revisions

Rageh Omaar (born Mogadishu, Somalia on July 19 1967) is a Muslim former world affairs correspondent working for the BBC, and since February 2006 a presenter on the nightly weekday documentary series Witness for Al Jazeera International.

Career

He was educated at Cheltenham College before reading Modern History at New College, Oxford. His career highlights include reporting live from war-torn Somalia and Iraq.

He began his journalistic career as a trainee for The Voice newspaper, and in 1991 he moved to Ethiopia where he freelanced as a foreign correspondent, working mainly for the BBC World Service. A year later, he returned to London to work as a producer and broadcast journalist for the BBC. He moved to South Africa after being appointed the BBC's Africa correspondent - his wife and children were based there from September 11 through to 2004, and his regular commuting made domestic life difficult ^[1]

During his coverage of the Iraq war, almost 90% of the population watched him on either the weekday BBC news bulletins, or on News 24. Many of his broadcasts were syndicated across the U.S., where the Washington Post labelled him the Scud Stud. He has written a book about his time as the BBC's Iraq correspondent called Revolution Day. The book deals with the effects of the Saddam Hussein regime, UN sanctions and the Iraq War on Iraqi civilians.

He is the recipient of an EMMA award for the best media correspondent.

Personal life

In 2000 he married Nina Cuninghame, the daughter of a baronet. They live in Chiswick, West London, with their children Loula, 5, and Sami, 3 (ages as of February 2006)

Quotations

• May 2006, Interview with The Independent: In the eyes of Rageh Omaar, Western news organisations are perpetrating a "fraud" on their viewers with their misleading coverage of the war in Iraq, the conflict in which he established himself as an internationally-recognised journalist ^[2]

Works

• An Islamic History of Europe. video documentary , BBC Four [1]: August 2005.

References

External links

• BBC Press Office
• Guardian Interview
• Times interview on his move to Al Jazeera
• "Rageh Omaar: The Scud Stud aims for truth" Independent

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