Education
Goodman was educated at Lytton High School, Gisborne, and Samuel Marsden Collegiate School for Girls, Wellington, before studying journalism at the Wellington Polytechnic School of Journalism.
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Diana Goodman
Edit ProfileCareer
After graduating, she worked for the Cook Islands Broadcasting and Newspaper Corporation, The Dominion, and the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation. She moved to Britain in 1975 and started out in commercial radio before joining British Broadcasting Corporation Radio Manchester as a news producer in 1978. Goodman became a network radio reporter in 1982.
The following year she was sent to Australia and New Zealand to cover the Prince and Princess of Wales" first tour abroad.
In 1984, she reported from Beirut on the Lebanese Civil War. The British Broadcasting Corporation attracted some criticism from listeners who objected to a woman being sent to cover a conflict.
In 1986, Goodman was posted to Bonn as the British Broadcasting Corporation"s first-ever female foreign correspondent. As well as reporting on West Germany, she covered Kurt Waldheim"s election as president of Austria.
During the political upheavals in Eastern Europe in 1989, she came under fire while reporting on the overthrow of President Nicolae Ceauşescu.
In January 1990, the British Broadcasting Corporation was able to open its first bureau in East Berlin and Goodman was based there as Eastern Europe correspondent from 1990 to 1993. She reported on the first democratic elections in Eastern Europe, the reunification of Germany, the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and, from Moscow, the resignation of General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and the end of the Soviet Union. In 1994 Goodman was posted to Russia, serving as Moscow correspondent until 1998.
She covered the political ramifications of the war in Chechnya, Boris Yeltsin"s presidency and the effects of economic change.
A dispatch for From Our Own Correspondent on the plight of handicapped children in Russia"s orphanages produced a strong response from listeners. On her return to London, Goodman worked for British Broadcasting Corporation Newsgathering management and was project editor for two books published by British Broadcasting Corporation News: The Day that Shook the World (public
13 December 2001 and The Battle for Iraq.
