I chose this piece to review before it was reviewed by another EB member. Let me see if I can put this question to the producer and the community. Our stations audiences are adults. PRX does a great job in providing a forum for youth producers to exhibit their work. By what standards should stations make choices about work produced by people 10 years younger than the bottom end of our demo? What is it that stations are looking for from young professionals?

This is wonderful produced piece. The music accentuates the story. And the first half is well written and documented. Unfortunately, the second half the segment falls short on story telling and objectivity.

Sad stories of our war dead are common in all media today, but this piece finds a truly horrific story of two lives ended by the most vexing emotion of humanity...hate..be it war or family violence. The irony of the combination to be examined in this piece is overwhelming. What a great story to found.

Now telling it is difficult. The first half of the piece is well done. The story telling of the husband's death in war is, while sadly is nothing we haven't heard before, told with dignity and objectivity.

Now here is where it falls short. First, the violent father element comes way out of left field midway through the segment. We've gotten to know the wife for about three and a half minutes with no background being offered. So when we get to her violent father who comes from overseas, we're hit out of left field with this information causing a bit of confusion that deflect listener interest.

Public Radio is emotional and you can't get more emotional than this story. But public radio isn't supposed to be preachy. By the end of this piece the writing falls down to youthful complaining and angst about the injustice of the war. To be sure, I don't personally disagree, but as a radio professional, my job is to put work on the air that expands my listener's thinking, as this story does. But my job is also to prevent work from getting on the air that points my listeners down a path that limits their thinking about this. At the end of this piece, that happens.

So, I am left with thinking about this: With the determined oversight of a more experienced producer, I think this piece could be driveway moment. The producer has all the required skills to grab the listener and a bit of editing and robust discussion could have made this piece a hallmark of public radio programming for more than just the time it was on the air. I encourage the producer to rework this piece because the story is just too good.

Ultimately, I find myself wondering if I want this kind of story from a younger professional? If this story came up in my newsroom I would have certainly assigned it to my most senior reporter. I have listened to several youth producer pieces and I find the pieces I find most compelling is when a young professional tells me how his compatriots are thinking and dealing with life. So I think the best thing this piece has done for me is to focus my thinking about what I am looking for in youth produced pieces and how I could incorporate them into our air.