By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Listening in on two war stories

I want to call your attention to two astonishingly good stories I heard on WBUR (90.9 FM) this morning.

The first, from NPR, is about a former marine who married a young Iraqi woman and brought her back home to the Ozarks. It’s a love story, but damned complicated, and no one’s living happily ever after. Listen to it or read it — and click on the photo (or here) for an audio slideshow. The reporter is Ivan Watson and photographer is Paxton Winters.

The second, a local story, is tangentially related — a piece by Monica Brady-Meyerov on Stephen Fortunato, a young Beverly man who was killed in Afghanistan on Monday while
serving in the Army. The audio’s not online yet, but you’ll find it here later today.

Fortunato’s death is receiving respectful and comprehensive coverage elsewhere. Paul Leighton has an outstanding story in the Salem News. In the Boston Globe, John Ellement does a nice job and includes a video. The Boston Herald has fine coverage from Laurel Sweet and Mark Garfinkel. I could go on.

But Brady-Meyerov paints a sound portrait of Fortunato’s family that is worth hearing as a model for radio journalism.

Previous

Not dead yet

Next

Beating the press

3 Comments

  1. Andrew Phelps

    Here’s the correct link to Monica’s story (with audio):http://www.wbur.org/news/2008/80767_20081017.asp(For some reason, the link in your post doesn’t work!)Regards,Andrew PhelpsEditor, wbur.org

  2. bostonmediawatch

    Fortunato was a meathead. His “blog” speaks for itself. I’m glad he was blowing shit up over there instead of over here.http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/10/slain_beverly_s.html

  3. Bill Toscano

    One of the nive things about the 40-minute ride to work through rural upstate New York is getting to listen to NPR.I heard a good part of that story on the way to work this morning.Great stuff.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén