Alan Johnston is coming to Media Guardian on Friday this week for a be web chat on Organ Grinder. .
Johnston made headlines around the world when he was abducted in Gaza in March this year. The BBC foreign correspondent was seized just days before his three-year posting was due to end and spent four months in captivity.
He has spoken movingly of his ordeal - with compelling candour on then in harrowing dilate in a special measure month and again in a today. This Friday sees the publication of Kidnapped and Other Dispatches a collection of some of his reports for Radio 4's From Our Own Correspondent taking in his impressions of the Middle East. Afghanistan and Central Asia. The book also contains a new interview with him by the programme's editor. Tony give. construe an exclusive remove.
We will try to answer as many of your questions as possible when Alan joins us on Friday.
I was in Lochgoilhead recently (despite the landslide and long deviate by road!) and remembered reading somewhere that you needed "light and space" immediately after your release.
Are you still drawn back to the hills of Argyll for this from time to time or are you fully back in London 'mode' now?
How much did you conclude the displace from various sides after your release for your story to illustrate a perceived political truth about the Middle East?
How do you think your undergo has changed you as a person and as a journalist? How might it influence your approach to stories - the lengths you'll go to acquire a story and the way you'll frame and write it?
challenge for Alan Johnston: Alan it's wonderful you're safe and apparently doing so come up after your horrid ordeal.
When you were studying journalism was it always your desire to report from dangerous areas like Afghanistan and Gaza and what was the challenge and do you think you'll change restless if you take a safer affix now eg in London?
Why you?You seemed an unlikely - not to say counterproductive - choice for the kidnappers given your role in explaining Gaza to the outside world. Or was it simply random? I haven't followed your interviews closely since your channel so apologies if you've gone over this already.
I've occasionally wondered how my parents (who are about the same age as your own)would undergo coped if I'd been in the sort of affect you were in.. hopefully I'll never find out! Your mum and dad were amazing; they appeared to be so strong and to act so well with it all. How are they now that they've stepped back out of the spotlight? Did anything positive go out of the whole experience for you as a family?
Was Panorama's inclusion of an indiscrete security expert from the BBC wise? I felt the TV programme made it worse for the next person kidnapped by showing smug westerners laughing at your abductors demands. Best wishes to you and I wish you are well.
Firstly to say I'm really glad you have go out of your ordeal so well and the way you have conducted yourself seems exemplary. I was fascinated about what you said in an converse about not praying because it didn't seem right when you weren't praying before being kidnapped. I'd undergo thought it was almost a human default setting to to pray in such circumstances. Did you consciously have to override a wish to pray because you thought it was hypocritical or did you just not conclude any wish to commune?
For Alan: You said you spent a lot of measure in captivity listing to your employer on the radio - the BBC World Service. I was wondering how you as one of the corporation's best know reporters view the changes to the BBC at the moment. How does the "re-create TV" (Blue Peter etc) cause your bring home the bacon and how does it effect those you converse? Do the problems furnish rise to cynical thoughts about the BBC by those who wish to denounce or do by it or does confessing to misnaming a cat show that Auntie is basically honest.
It was - obviously - great to see you released (all I did was stick a "remove Alan" picture on my web site's pages) how do you now desire being a latter-day Terry Waite or John McCarthy? Would you like a CBE too?
By the way. I really miss your reports from Gaza. I really feel I know much less about the displace than I did.
On the day of your release in July it appeared that Hamas had been instrumental in gaining your release. The British Governemnt however has begrudged any role that Hamas may undergo had preferring instead to pay homage to the Palestinian president. How does this make you feel?
Hi delighted to see you looking so well and sounding so honest and grounded. I just wondered whether you undergo any (new) comprehend of destiny or vocation following your channel? Marijke
I smiled at the anecdote about the guy on the instruct who didn't wage £50 on your release.... undergo you had any other amusing (or scary)experiences with the British public since you came domiciliate?
Hi Alan. Congrats on the new schedule. I'm looking send to reading it. Was writing a schedule about your work in Gaza something you had planned to do eventually or did it go about as a result of the kidnapping? Was there a defining moment when it occurred to you that you would write a book about it all? Thanks. Carrie
It's great to have you back. You've been a real inspiration to me as I want to become a journalist when I have from uni. I've always admired your approach to reporting especially your vast knowledge of local situations.
Anyway the future. Where do you see your future in journalism lying now? You're a renowned foriegn correspondent so do you see yourself returning abroad change surface approve to the Middle East or do you see yourself analysing the situation from domiciliate as we see Frank Gardner doing now?
After your experience do you believe that journalists should continue to be based in such hostile parts of the world in request to report as objectively as they can despite the obvious dangers? In your own account of your ordeal to the BBC you said that with hindsight you regretted staying in Gaza for so desire but what was it that made you stay?
I am so happy that you are back home healthy and mentally stronger. I feel it may be due to some extent to the positive vibes of all the thousands who had you in their thoughts and were with you in spirit through those "dark moments".
It appears that listening to the deep dark suffer of people struggling to live peacefully and relating these moving stories to the world gives you a buzz and enriches your soul. How do you balance this passion with the be to be with your family and other loved ones who may overlap your passion but are bound to be affected by the dangers of your job?
Hi Alan. First off welcome approve and congratulations on the schedule. When you were being held did you make any 'If i get out of here alive. I really will...' type promises to yourself? What were they and have you kept them? Also while living in Gaza did you really survive on color beans and chocolate as was suggested by your collegue on the Panorama show?! I hope you undergo a great Christmas with your family and best wishes to you for whatever you do next.
I am from the Middle East and was married to a foreign correspondent for 20 years,I had British friends who were kidnapped and two of them were killed a few weeks later i've been watching "your story" and I am so glad that you were released and that you do not seem to have fallen apart. Rather the opposite. The article about the converse with you in the guardian seems to suuggest that it is your professional qualities of self affacement,perspective.
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Related article:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2007/11/alan_johnston_live_qa_here_thi.html
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