Team 'replaces' Cooke's Letter

Alistair Cooke died earlier this year, aged 95

A team of eight journalists have joined BBC Radio 4 for a new programme which "replaces" the late Alistair Cooke's Letter From America.

A View From... features each reporter's take on the latest news and trends in their own part of the world.

The show, which includes reporters in the US, Australia, China, Brazil, South Africa, India, and the Caribbean, will air in Cooke's 8.50pm Friday slot.

Cooke died in March aged 95, just weeks after retiring from the radio series.

Pulitzer Prize

A spokesman for the BBC said the new series would run over the coming weeks but added that "no decision" had been taken about the long-term future of Letter from America.

The sole US journalist on the A View From... team is Tim Egan, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Seattle correspondent of the New York Times.

His contributions will alternate with those of Therese Mills, editor of Trinidad and Tobago newspaper Newsday, Australian writer Sarah MacDonald, Chinese journalist Lin Gu, and the author of New Voices of Islam, Farish Noor.

AllAfrica.com correspondent Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, Indian magazine editor Vinod Mehta and InfoBrazil.com's editor Adhemar Altieri complete the line-up.

Sole successor

Producer Jennie Walmsley said she thought opting for a panel of presenters was the right way to follow the legacy of Cooke, whose broadcasting career lasted some 58 years.

"If we had chosen a single successor, he or she would be forever compared to Alistair Cooke," she said.

The BBC spokesman added: "We will, over coming weeks, run a variety of contributors from across the globe in a new series called A View From, which will occupy the same slot as Letter from America.

"We are giving the situation much thought and it currently remains undecided as we consider how best to serve the network's audience."