Graham is a freelance Producer/Director/Writer/Narrator experienced in making documentaries, current affairs, and factual programmes and series for a variety of broadcasters including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, Discovery, CNBC, CNA, Travel Channel (USA) etc
London-based he specialises in working 'overseas' and has made programmes in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Vietnam, Serbia, Bosnia, Russia, Estonia, Brazil, Uzbekistan, Canada, the USA, South Africa, India as well as most of Europe.
Much of Graham's work is through UK-based independent production company, First Freedom Productions, but he also freelances as:
Executive Producer
Series Producer/Director
Series Producer
Series Director
Producer/Director
Writer (broadcast and print)
Narrator Trainer/Consultant (TV journalism and documentary/factual production)
Work over the last couple of years includes creating, and producing/directing for BBC World, three series of 'Develop or Die?' documentaries - examining a variety of social and economic issues in the 'Developing World' (India, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, Vietnam etc) from their perspective rather than that of the 'West'. He has also been working on BBC World series 'Third Eye' and travel/observational series 'One Square Mile'.
But not all of his work is confined to current affairs. He has also produced/directed series such as 'The Thai Way', a 13 x half-hour cookery series for BBC Style shot over 15 weeks travelling around Thailand with chef Sompon Nabnian and 'Around the World in 90 Days' following a round-the-world cruise for Discovery Travel (US)/BBC (UK).
He also does a great deal of training and consultancy and is at the moment working with SATV to help set up a news entertainment/news channel in Bangladesh.
Graham started his career as a newspaper reporter (with The Sunday Times in Johannesburg, South Africa), moved to radio (Independent Radio News) as a Foreign Correspondent and then television (Thames Television) as a Reporter/Presenter.
With a group of colleagues he set up First Freedom Productions in 1988 and has been working via the company and on a freelance basis ever since.
Some Background
After a childhood in India Graham began his career as a print journalist on the graduate trainee scheme of The Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg and then transferred to the South African Sunday Times as a reporter. He then moved back to the UK and worked for Independent Radio News (IRN) as a Foreign Correspondent, HTV West as a Reporter/Presenter and then at Thames Television as a Political Reporter and Presenter on both news and current affairs programmes (both magazine and long-form formats).
At Thames he also held the post of Chief Reporter responsible for training new reporting staff as well as being the FoC of the National Union of Journalists (responsible for negotiating pay and conditions for the company's journalists).
He formed First Freedom Productions with a group of colleagues in 1988 and turned to producing and directing as well as writing and narrating.
First Freedom did for some years all the UK-based reversioning for Discovery UK & EMEA (Europe, Middle East, & Africa), which Graham Exec Produced (and, at times, also wrote and narrated the UK/EMEA versions of programmes).
Detail
After having spent most of his time at IRN/LBC as a reporter on international and national stories, ranging from the Turkish 'invasion' of Cyprus, through a number of tours in Northern Ireland, to covering major industrial disputes, business news, political and trades union conferences Graham joined HTV West as a reporter/presenter.
For the first year he was on the regional news programmes, mostly as a location reporter, doing two to three stories daily. The West Country isn't a hard news area normally, which, in fact, made it more difficult to cover. There is a real skill in making a fete in a small village interesting when viewers see it every year!
There were, of course, some harder stories, but these tended to be crime, local government and disasters such as fires and motorway pile-ups.
Stories had to be filed for the lunchtime, main 6pm and late night bulletins. Graham also co-presented the main 6pm show around once a week, on the normal presenter's day off.
Depending on need (staffing was on the tight side) he would also sometimes produce the late-night bulletin.
For the last six months at HTV West Graham worked on the late-night weekly investigative half-hour current affairs strand as the main (only) reporter, covering stories in more depth as well as some feature-type programmes (investigation of life inside Leyhill Open Prison, for example).
On joining Thames TV (then the largest commercial broadcaster in the UK) Graham worked initially on 'Thames at Six' as a general news reporter then political correspondent. The format of the show allowed for both short news items and longer (5 - 10 minute) features. Most of them had to be hard news or investigations.
As political correspondent he also, in addition to location filming, did a great deal of studio presenting, including co-presenting all Thames's election specials.
The name of the 6pm show than changed to Thames News, with more, and shorter, items, making the programme more akin to an ITN news bulletin than the more traditional 6pm programme. Graham was appointed Chief Reporter and, in addition to making news items, held the morning editorial meetings in the absence of the News Editor and was also responsible for the training/induction of newly appointed journalists as well as the general well-being of the news team as a whole.
He then moved to the current affairs department and worked on programmes such as 'Reporting London', 'Thames Reports' and 'This Week' as a reporter. In the case of the first two the programmes they were weekly and magazine style - with each show containing two news-based 7 to 10-minute items (one hard, one soft) linked by a studio item. During this period Graham was, as a location reporter, making one item every two to three weeks, covering investigative reporting, politics, business and industry.
He once calculated that whilst at Thames he made more than a 1000 news items and dozens of news-based current affairs items. Not including the presenting of studio-based items and studio-based political coverage.
On leaving Thames in 1988 Graham took up Directing and Producing, both via First Freedom and on a purely freelance basis as outlined above.