Ben Anderson is a television reporter and writer. He was born in Middlesbrough, and now lives in London.
A veteran reporter and presenter, in 2005, Anderson reported for Frontline Football – four films for the BBC that followed national football teams beset by turmoil during the qualifying rounds of the World Cup. In the previous year, he was a reporter on Holidays in the Danger Zone - The Violent Coast. This four part series for BBC2 focused on travelling along West Africa's notoriously dangerous coast. Back in 2003, Ben was a reporter on Correspondent - Terror in South East Asia, which profiled Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's time in Manila with Ramsi Yousef, prior to the September 11 attacks.
Anderson is perhaps most famous for Holidays in the Axis of Evil, the BBC series where he travelled secretly to Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Libya and Cuba. He also made films about gang wars in El Salvador, the landless movement in Brazil, pollution in Varanasi, homosexuals in America, Maoist insurgents in Bihar, water rights for Palestinians in the West Bank, the third generation of Agent Orange victims in Vietnam, deportees and pimps in Cambodia and the war in Southern Iraq. Ben is also the presenter of World's Toughest Tribes – a six part television documentary series for Discovery Channel that focuses on unique modern day tribes.
His recent work included "Taking on the Taliban", a harrowing film that resulted from two months in Helmand, Afghanistan's most violent province, with the Queen's Company, Grenadier Guards. The film was shortlisted for RTS programme and Journalism awards, as a well as a BAFTA. His diary from Helmand was published by the London review of Books.
He has since covered Slave labour in Dubai, and new threats and solutions to deforestation for BBC 1's Panorama. He has been back to Helmand several times, for Newsnight, the Times, the Guardian magazine, GQ and VBS (where Spike Jonze singled out his film "Obama's War" as amongst the best of 2009.)
M.I.A. wrote a hit single about Ben Anderson, and he has worked with World Champion David Hayemaker Haye on a film.