Barbara Plett Usher is a Canadian-born UK journalist with experience in the Middle East and the UN.
Plett Usher graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in 1991 with a bachelor's degree in journalism.
[1] She then went on to cover the death of the Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in 2000[1] and to do much reporting under siege in Ramallah in 2002.
[3][4] 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.
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.