Quote: George Alagiah

"When I joined the BBC, arguably the Western world's most influential broadcaster, I told myself I would avoid the clichés. If I took pictures of the starving, I would try to preserve their dignity; if I showed footage of conflict I would try to explain where all the anger and hatred came from. I wanted to challenge the image of Africa as a place of tribal savagery and greedy, callous leaders.

But Africa didn't help me. All too often it was difficult to make sense of what I saw. That's the way it has been since the BBC sent me back to Africa for the first time. Liberia was a bad place from which to attempt to rebuild the continent's tarnished reputation. Two and a half decades after I had left for boarding school in England, Africa was in worse shape than I could ever have imagined."

-George Alagiah, A Passage to Africa, 2001