Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
A listener production. Hey, it's Sasha Barbagat. Welcome to The Weekend Briefing, where we chat with the humans behind the headlines. And my guest today truly epitomises that. Lise Doucette is a proud Arcadian woman who was born in a small town in Canada and went on to become the BBC's chief international correspondent.
a role she's still in today, having just the other week returned from reporting in Iran. She's spent her career on the ground in some of the most dangerous and infamous war zones, ranging from Damascus to Tehran, the Ivory Coast to Gaza, and dozens more in between. But she'll be the first to tell you that there's a lot more to these places than the conflicts they become known for.
Not only is she insanely well-respected for her work, but she is also a kind, genuine and warm person. It is easy to see why people want to talk to her.
Our chat covers everything from her new book, which takes place inside the walls of Afghanistan's first luxury hotel, a place she lived in for almost a whole year, to the importance of truth in journalism, to how to make a home wherever you are, even in the midst of bombs and wars.
A little later in the show is The Weekend List with Helen Smith, where we recommend what to watch, see, do, eat and listen to. But first, here is my chat with the incredible Lise Doucette. Lise Doucette, thank you so much for joining us on The Weekend Briefing.
It is really nice to see you in Sydney, Sasha. There's a little variation there.
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Chapter 2: Who is Lyse Doucet and what is her background?
And in this bright yellow studio. It's really nice. It really makes you pay attention.
Yeah. I don't know about the yellow, but we live with it. Sunshine of journalism. Oh, beautiful. Okay, well. I think this first question might, I don't know if you're going to love it, but we know that you have an incredible, impressive career spanning four decades and you're extremely revered in the journalism world. You're an icon. You're legendary.
We're journalists. We're journalists. We shouldn't
I know, but I think the work you do and the respect people have for that work is very well storied. But I'd like to start off with something that people might not know about you. What is something that you'd like to be remembered for outside of your work?
Ooh, that is a very interesting question. People, when I first started working for the BBC, and obviously I don't have a British accent, people would say, where's that Lisa Doucette from? Where are her parents from? And to this day, people come up to me and ask, and some people assume I'm Irish.
I have an Irish colleague at the BBC, Orla Guerin, and I get complimented on her work and she gets complimented on mine. And you're looking at me thinking, you don't sound very Irish. But I come from the east coast of Canada. My name, Lise Doucette, is very French. So my ancestry is your listeners may not know the story of the Acadians, but you may know Louisiana, Cajun music, Cajun history.
Well, my French ancestry is Acadian, the people who were expelled by the British in 1755. So, you know, us British and us Canadians, we all have our tangled and tortuous tales of our history with the United Kingdom. On my mother's side, it's an Irish ancestry.
And I come from the part of Canada where there's both a lot of Irish and Scottish, which explains why my accent is a little bit different from the other side of Canada, which is a more flat kind of probably closer.
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Chapter 3: What challenges has Lyse faced while reporting in war zones?
Dare I whisper closer to the American accent. We like to say we're different from the United States. And I'm 100% Canadian. I only have a Canadian passport. And fun facts, people at the BBC sometimes make fun of me as I grew up in a curling family. You probably don't have curling in Australia. Yeah. It's become very popular now in the Winter Olympics.
You're saying, oh, yeah, you had to cover the throwing granite stones, rocks down the ice. And it's starting to gain a bit of respect in the United Kingdom. It used to be some of my British colleagues would say, oh, Lise, what about that curling sport? Is it really a sport? And it is a sport, intellectual as well as physical.
Yeah, absolutely. Look, you were one of six children born in Canada. What was life like for you growing up?
I bet this is something that your listeners and viewers can relate to. I grew up in a very small town on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. And when you look back to those times, they weren't perfect by any imagination. But in contrast with today, they seem rather idyllic. Of course, it's a time we didn't have Google search engines or any other search engines. We didn't have the internet.
It was the kind of time where... We call it appointment to view. You'd sit down at night to watch the main television news. You'd all watch the same programs. You'd watch, at Christmas, it would be a Charlie Brown special. You'd watch The Sound of Music.
There was a simplicity and, dare I say, an innocence to it, even though my hometown had all the problems of drugs and criminality and any small town would. But I... I say to this day, and I don't know about you, Sasha, but I think Canadians and Australians are similar in the sense of that we can't cast everyone in the same kind of, with the same kind of characteristics.
But my part of Canada is known as being very friendly, very warm. And I see it as a very small town kind of place. the way people relate to each other, because everyone knows everyone else. And I feel grateful to this day that while I didn't have the advantage of growing up in the big city with all the bright lights and opportunities big city offers, I went to bigger cities for university.
I'm really glad I began my life where I did. And I think to this day, it holds me in good stead. Are you a Sydney? Were you born in Sydney? Yeah, born and bred. Okay. Yeah. Well, Sydney is still, it's not as big as London, but it is the, you know, it's a big city.
I'm a city girl for sure. But, you know, I had grandparents who lived rurally and I can definitely identify with that idea of smaller roots and smaller beginnings. Do you still have roots in that same place?
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Chapter 4: How does Lyse define 'home' in the context of her career?
I think it's important to live in sunshine and try to find hope and optimism.
That was Lise Doucette. I hope you enjoyed that chat just as much as I did having it. She really is a marvellous woman and journalist. If you are in Sydney, you can catch her this weekend at the Sydney Writers' Week. She's on stage tomorrow. You can check out the link in our show notes for tickets. Also, her book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul, A People's History of Afghanistan Over 40 Years.
Now it is time for the weekend list where we recommend what to watch, see, do, eat and listen to and a bunch of other things. I've got an interesting one for you this week. But first, it's time for our listener recommendation.
Hi, I'm Roxy from Tamworth and I'm watching The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. I'm re-watching the season off the back of Taylor Frankie Paul's cancelled Bachelorette season.
Oh, good one. Like that. Remember, if you're listening to this and you would like to send your own recommendation in, please do. We'd love to hear from you. You can slide into our DMs at The Briefing Podcast and pop in a voice note and we'll play it out on a future ep of the show. But producer Helen Smith is here with me as always.
Helen, what is your first recommendation? My recommendation is a video that was actually posted on Instagram and it's on TikTok, socials everywhere. by New York City Mayor Zoran Mondani. So we love Mondani and he posted a video on May 15th and this is Nakba Day.
So Nakba, if you don't know, it's actually the Arabic word for catastrophe and it refers to the mass displacement and the dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. So this video that he posted is of a survivor of Nakba and it is so beautifully shot. It is so informational. It is so...
Just moving that I think a lot of people can forget about Nakba and that it happened so long ago because we're so wrapped up in the conflicts and the wars that are going on all around the world right now that we can forget about historically what has happened and what can be the force behind a lot of the things we're seeing today. And I just wanted to play a little tiny bit from this video.
And there are certain smells.
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Chapter 5: What insights does Lyse share about her book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul?
And, you know, as much as it's difficult, they do live in big community groups where each other's helping out. So that's probably where they get a lot of that help by raising those huge families because it's insane.
Yeah, so look, there's a lot going on in this series. Molly Mae was in the first one. She's not really in this second series, but it also talks about mental health a lot because Tyson Fury is very open with battling with bipolar and various other mental health conditions. But I did like that aspect of it.
It was very open and I think that's very important, especially with a boxing and heavyweight champion because it's very head impact. It's very dangerous, the sport. Mm-hmm. But yes, it's called At Home With The Furies. It's on Netflix. I might give that one a go because I'm quite interested in Traveller Families. It is interesting. I'd love to know what you guys think as well.
If you guys have watched it, DM us at The Briefing. I think there's just so many fascinating chats that can come out of this series. But yeah, let us know what you think on Instagram at The Briefing Podcast.
Yeah, all right. Well, I'm going to go watch that. Well, I've spoken about before. I have so many shows. They're just in my queue. I'm adding it to the queue. Thank you, Helen. Thank you for listening to this week's weekend briefing. We appreciate you being here with us. Do you have a guest as well maybe that you'd like us to try and get on?
We have some super interesting people that we talked to. Obviously, Lise today was wonderful. But if you do have a talent recommendation, send us a message as well. We'd love to hear from you. All right, that is it for today. I'm Sasha Barbagat. I'll catch you next time.
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