A Libyan kidnapping and the words that brought us together

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lucy Sexton was making a TV series about hostages when her father Joe was abducted

Lucy and her father Joe Sexton are American journalists. In 2021 Lucy was working on the TV series ‘Hostages’ when her personal and professional life collided. Joe had been abducted while on a reporting trip in Libya. What followed was a surreal week of parallels as they both tried to make sense of what was happening – Joe from a cell in Libya and Lucy from a production set in Washington. Later, they turned their experience into a joint writing project that brought them closer than ever before.

Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: May Cameron Editor: Harry Graham Sound design: Joel Cox

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about what goes into making one.
0:06.5	I'm Sadata Sese, an assistant commissioner of podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:11.1	I pull a lot of levers to support a diverse range of podcasts on all sorts of subjects,
0:16.0	relationships, identity, comedy, even one that mixes poetry, music and inner city life. So one day I'll be
0:23.5	helping host develop their ideas, the next fact-checking, a feature, and the next looking at
0:29.6	how a podcast connects with its audience. And maybe that's you. So if you like this podcast,
0:35.4	check out some others on BBC Sounds.
0:43.4	Hi, I'm Una Chaplin and I'm the host of a new podcast called Hollywood Exiles.
0:53.0	It tells the story of how my grandfather Charlie Chaplin and many others were caught up in a campaign to root out communism in Hollywood.
0:58.0	Hollywood Exiles from CBC Podcasts and the BBC World Service.
1:00.5	Find it wherever you get your podcasts.
1:09.3	When we were in a cell in Tripoli, the dominant emotion I had anyway was one of shame.
1:14.4	Shame at what you've managed to get yourself into. Shame at what you're putting your family through. Shame at your stupidity or your naivete or your recklessness. So in those
1:21.4	hours, I said to myself, I never want to write about this. I don't even want to do the article we came
1:26.6	here to do.
1:33.5	American newspaper journalist Joe Sexton spent days locked up in a cell, somewhere in Libya,
1:38.0	after being dramatically taken prisoner by an armed group while on assignment.
1:41.1	They were difficult and confusing days.
1:45.1	But they were also the genesis of a personal piece of writing,
1:48.2	about a dark coincidence which happened that week.
1:51.8	His co-writer on this article would be his daughter Lucy,
1:57.3	also a journalist, and the words they'd bring to print would leave them as close as ever.
	...

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