Â鶹Éç

With President Obama's first anniversary in the White House approaching this week, we thought it would be interesting to look at how Kenyan media coverage of the first African-American president has changed since he took office.Ìý

First, Rajan spoke to Henry Owur, the Foreign Editor of the country's leading daily newspaper, the .

He told Rajan that popularity for the American president remains very strong - although he said that what the people of his country really want is for Air Force One to land in Nairobi, delivering President Obama for a visit. You can hear a short extract from his interview in the programme, but you can hear the rest of what he had to say by clicking below.

In contrast, Mark Mardell, the Â鶹Éç's North America editor, reflects on the President's dwindling popularity and the possible reasons for it - among other things, the influence of the right-wing media including Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV.

"Very professional, very slick and very, very negative towards the President," is how Mark put it to Rajan.

Dangers of war

We also take a look at the dangers of war reporting.

Last weekend, the Defence Correspondent of one of the Sunday newspapers here in Britain, the Sunday Mirror, was killed in Afghanistan; two weeks ago a Canadian journalist died in another part of that country, and in both incidents there were military deaths, too.

Both journalists were embedded, which means that they live and work alongside an active military unit. The idea is that they get closer to the action - but of course it means they are also closer to potential danger.

The Â鶹Éç's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen, himself a reporting veteran of a number of conflicts, talks about the advantages and disadvantages of being embedded rather than working independently. And his assessment of the risks of embedding is chilling.

"Being embedded does not guarantee safety, because you share the risks of the military," he tells Rajan.

Review what we do

By the way, we're looking for listeners who might be interested in reviewing some of the programmes on the World Service, and discussing their thoughts with the people responsible for making the programmes.

I don't necessarily just mean being critical of what you hear - you may want to find out how a programme came to be made, or what gave the producer the idea for it in the first place. So if you think this is something you'd like to get involved in, you can post a message here, or, better still, email us at overtoyou@bbc.co.uk.

Cathy Packe is the Producer, Over To You

Over To You is your chance to have your say about the Â鶹Éç World Service and its programmes. It airs at 10:40 and 23:40 every Saturday, and atÌý02:40 on Sunday (GMT).Ìý

• Listen to previous episodes ofÌýOver To You
• Subscribe to the podcast
  
• Send the team your feedback by email (overtoyou@bbc.co.uk), telephone (44 144 960 9000), SMS (447786 202006) or by leaving comments on this blog.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?