Barbara Plett

Early life and education Plett Usher was born in Manitoba, Canada, in 1967.

She graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in 1991 with a bachelor's degree in journalism.

During the BBC programme From Our Own Correspondent broadcast on 30 September 2004, Plett Usher said she cried when she saw Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat being taken to hospital during his terminal illness. This led to suggestions that the BBC was biased. After many complaints from viewers the BBC Governors' Programme Complaints Committee ruled that Plett Usher had breached editorial guidelines on due impartiality and the BBC's director of News, Helen Boaden, apologised for an editorial misjudgment.

Since 2024 she has been the BBC's Africa Editor, based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Personal life In 2003 Plett married Graham Usher, the Palestine correspondent of The Economist magazine. The couple moved to Pakistan in 2005, and to New York in 2009. Graham Usher died on 8 August 2013, at age 54, of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.