Michael Buerk is a celebrated newscaster who chooses to stand largely apart from the rest - because he can't believe it is a respectable job for a reasonably intelligent grown-up.
As he goes out of his way to make clear in this new autobiography, newsreading is what he does when the BBC convinces him that there is nobody else to do it. Although he has reported from around the world, the big moment in Buerk's CV is his reporting of the Ethiopian famine in 1984.
His two Ethiopian famine reports of October 24, 1984 are, says Buerk, "by far the most influential pieces of television ever broadcast".
And perhaps he's entitled to crow a bit, having overcome a tough start. Abandoned by a bigamist father, his mother died when Buerk was still in his teens. Buerk also writes about his personal life, including meeting the brother he never knew he had, in Canada, in 2003 after his father's death.
Overall, the book rattles along with the pace and range of the best journalism.
The Road Taken: An Autobiography by Michael Buerk is published by Hutchinson priced £20.
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