The road taken - Michael Buerk

Michael Buerk occupies a unique position in British public life. From The Choice to The Moral Maze he combines the serious with the popular. Famous as a newscaster on the nightly news, he made his name in the toughest of journalistic environments and few of us could forget his emotive reports from Ethiopia at the height of the famine. He began his journalistic career with the Thomson Newspaper group in 1967 and went on to work on The Daily Mail. He joined the BBC in 1970. During his subsequent years as a foreign correspondent, which included a four-year posting to South Africa, he reported from 53 countries. He has won numerous awards including Radio Broadcaster of the Year, the Royal Television Society's Journalist of the Year and the BAFTA News Award. Michael Buerk has presented BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze, a lively ethical dilemma discussion forum, since it began in 1990. Since 1998 he has also presented The Choice, in which an individual explores how they coped with a personal dilemma. He has just stepped down from presenting BBC1's flagship The Ten O'Clock News to concentrate on high profile reporting and has several major television projects planned for the BBC.