The Power Of People In The Pacific

John Bradley, a teacher in Kiribati in the South Pacific, writes to AMT about radio’s role in bringing news of the Terrorist attacks: “This week was a good example of how isolated we really are here. I heard about the terrorist attacks on Radio Australia on Wednesday morning and immediately wanted to see it on TV. But there is no TV broadcast here in Kiribati, so even if I had been South, I could not have seen it. There is nowhere here to buy a newspaper (or magazine), so that wasn’t an option either. Thank heaven for radio – Between BBC World Service, Radio Australia, Radio NZ, and Voice of America, we heard a lot of news. A most terrible series of events. Listening on the radio from so far away it sounded like it couldn’t be real, it was just too unimaginable to contemplate such a thing…

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be in a group visiting the New Zealand Deputy High Commissioner’s home, and we were able to see BBC World and CNBC on satellite TV – in air conditioned comfort. By now they are not showing much footage of the incidents, but we did see some shots – enough to be stunned… Regards, John Bradley.”