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George Alagiah is BBC’s popular news presenter, and the author of ‘A Passage to Africa’. He talks to Just Right’s Emily Murray about childhood, news and human rights.

Emily Murray: You were born in Sri Lanka but educated in England. Where’s "home"?

George Alagiah: Where I would call "home" has changed over the years.  It used to be which ever country my parents were living in at the time - be it Sri Lanka, Ghana, Nigeria or later still, Zimbabwe. Now my home is in Britain. It's where I am comfortable. It’s also the place that has given me all the opportunities that I would have been denied in the country of my birth. I am British because I choose to be British, I felt a sense of allegiance. But citizenship and identity are different things. I am British but I didn't come to this country empty handed. I brought with me the customs and cultures that I had accumulated over the years. They are a part of my identity. No-one should be asked to choose between citizenship and identity - the two can sit side by side and only people of mischievous intent would ask you to pass some sort of test, ask you to prove your Britishness.

Emily Murray: When did you decide you wanted to become a journalist?

George Alagiah: I can't remember an exact date but I do remember the Watergate scandal in America - the way the journalists, Woodward and Bernstein, uncovered the truth. That fired my imagination. I saw how journalism could be a tool in the service of society.

Emily Murray: What has been your most challenging report?

George Alagiah: The challenge is not which story to tell but how to tell it. The "which" question is simple enough - Rwanda, Somalia, Afghanistan, Kosovo - I have been there and they needed to be covered, that much is pretty obvious. But the challenge, especially in television, is to do more than leave viewers with an impression of horror and disaster; one has to try to provide the context, explain the reasons for conflict. Trade patterns, intellectual property rights, history, long-standing disputes, anger - they all form the backdrop to a crisis. The story is never black and white. For example, I think it is fairly pointless reporting the arrival of people seeking asylum here without reporting on what's happening in the countries they are leaving.  Nobody leaves the country of their birth on a whim.

Emily Murray: How easy is it to report the facts and not get emotionally involved in the story?

George Alagiah: I'd be lying if I said I was never emotionally affected by a story I was covering. You have to learn to control and deal with your emotions.  Journalists are not alone in this - the police, paramedics, fire fighters - all these people witness tragedy first-hand but have to get on with the job. As a reporter you are an eyewitness, reporting what you see, and that whole process can be cathartic. You feel you have actually done something by reporting it in the first place. It's almost harder to be sitting at home, watching all this pain and suffering beamed into your sitting room and feeling powerless to do anything about it.

Emily Murray: Do you think you have become "de-sensitised" by years of hardened reporting?

George Alagiah: I hope not. Controlling one's emotions is not the same thing as becoming complacent. As far as I am concerned the day that happens is the day to give up.  For me reporting the facts alone has never been enough. Facts tell you what happened but not why they happened. You have to be objective when trying to uncover the facts but you can't afford to be aloof when trying to work out what they mean. Objective, yes, aloof no.  There is a difference. There has to besome empathy.

Emily Murray: We hear of journalists kidnapped, killed. Have you ever feared losing your life?

George Alagiah: Of course there have been many occasions when I have feared for my life. Some journalists get a kick out of being in the war zone. I'm not that kind.  I have spent a lot of my career in conflict but only because that was the only way to tell the story with any credibility, with authority. If I could have told the story from the comfort of my own living room, I would have preferred that! When I was reporting in Afghanistan, I was within seconds of death. I'd left my satchel behind at the front door of a house, I went back to get it and within moments of retrieving it, the house was hit by a mortar bringing it to the ground. On days like that you have to believe someone is taking care of you.

Emily Murray: Can you summarise what "A Passage to Africa" is about?

George Alagiah: The book is about reconciling the two Africas. The first Africa is the one of the great hope, the one I moved to as a child, newly free and independent from colonialism. Although we were immigrants we were all caught up in that air of optimism. It was contagious. In the book I seek to try to reconcile that with the second Africa, the one I came back to as an adult, the one I observed as a foreign correspondent. I have tried to show that to judge Africa by its worst excessesis as wrong as it would be to look at the whole of Europe through the prism of what went on in the Balkans.

Emily Murray: What sparked your interest inhuman rights?

George Alagiah: Because of the circumstances of how I grew up, of how we had to leave Sri Lanka [because my parents felt our rights would not be respected], I have always had an awareness of these issues. It wasn't in an intellectual way, but in an intuitive way. I knew, even as a child, that as Tamils, we were second class citizens in the Ceylon we left - hopefully it's going to be different now. Contrast that with the Africa we went to, a continent experiencing new freedom and new growth. Africa was being de-colonialised. I have carried that intuitive awareness into my journalism. I would call it the journalism of rights. Civilised life is underpinned by human rights - these are universal. That is the template against which I judge what I see as a reporter.

Emily Murray: Our charity supports a "Back to School" project for former child soldiers in Liberia. What is your most lasting memory of your time reporting there?

George Alagiah: When I went to Liberia, I was already a father myself, my children were 7 and 8. I spent some time with a 15 year old child soldier named "General Do or Die".  He had already been a few years in the war. The loss of innocence and the loss of childhood were so tangible. These children had absolutely no childhood or opportunity for childhood.  To be creative you need to have a childhood.

Emily Murray: What has been the key to your success as a journalist?

George Alagiah: Firstly I love what I do. Secondly, If I have a talent, then it is that I genuinely enjoy meeting and being with people. I sometimes have to pinch myself to make sure it's all real. I am actually being paid to do something that I would volunteer to do.

Emily Murray: How would you like to be remembered?

George Alagiah: With respect and affection. Of the two, respect is more important.

‘Facts tell you what happened but not why they happened’
‘A Passage to Africa’ is published by Little Brown and Company.