AN INTERNATIONAL MICROPHONE

David Andrews-Brown is the pen name of a freelance writer and broadcaster with extensive media experience in The Netherlands, South Africa and Israel.

As David Brown he was on the English language staff of Radio Nederland (later Radio Netherlands International before it became Radio Netherlands Worldwide) in Hilversum, between 1963 and 1965. Following his two-year contract, he was eventually able to return to Holland in order to compile and present documentaries on Amsterdam and Schiphol International Airport, as well as on a tall ships event, Sail Amsterdam. These three programmes were broadcast in South Africa.  (The English Service of Radio Netherlands Worldwide closed on June 29th, 2012.)

Although he was an announcer-producer with the English Service of the South African Broadcasting Corporation for many years (also as David Brown) his mini documentary series Cameos of the Holy Land was broadcast, between 1981 and 1985, on a freelance basis, by Springbok Radio, then a commercial service of the SABC.  This weekly series, on people, places and events in the Land of the Bible, was nominated for three broadcasting awards: two given by the SABC itself, and one at the International Radio Festival of New York. Market research indicated a listenership of 308 000.      

 

Among many other SABC documentaries (see the MEDIA EXPERIENCE page) have been  This Year in Jerusalem, a 30-minute programme, to mark the 25th anniversary of the state of Israel (in 1973), and Habemus Papam as well as John Paul: A Legacy of Two Popes, two special broadcasts on the elections of two popes in unusually quick succession following the death of Pope Paul VI in 1978. These two documentaries, on John Paul I and John-Paul II, were combined in the production of a long-playing record titled Habemus Papam and released by the American Catholic newspaper Our Sunday Visitor.  (See A PAPAL SEA CHANGE page.) 

 

David has also been a television critic with The Star in Johannesburg; a news presenter with Middle East Television, then based in Jerusalem, and an (historical) archivist at Disneyland Paris.  At the end of 2011 he returned to France following 18 months in Jerusalem as a video journalist, narrator and translator (from the Italian into English) with the former Franciscan Media Center, now the Christian Media Center. 

 

LA FRANCE

The summer scene, which illustrates the header of this website, was captured by David Andrews-Brown at St Jacut-de-la-Mer, on the north coast  of Britanny, where friends have a holiday house.  The photograph reflects his love of France, where he has lived since 1992, and where he feels spiritually and culturally at home.