Piece Comment

Review of Parents for Peace


Anna Norberg's audio montage features parents of British soldiers killed in Iraq. The segment is very intimate and sounds almost like a radio diary. You really feel for these parents. Unfortunately, it's got a couple of things working against it:

1. The heavy accents may cause some listeners to miss some of what's said

2. The piece is somewhat dated now because the main interview subject talks a lot about Tony Blair, who's no longer in charge.

3. There are production issues that may distract listeners (i.e. lots of nat sound under first montage of bites; a lack of room ambi to mask the edits in the long montage segment with mother Rose Gentle; an odd phone call interruptions that's included in the interview with Gentle). These aren't major issues, but they may be distracting to some listeners.

What is striking about this audio postcard is that unlike many of the American parents we hear from who've lost children in Iraq, these British and Scottish parents are unabashedly critical of Tony Blair and the British government. It's a perspective that is often not expressed in, for instance, the soldier obits we hear on NPR. Still - the piece could sound like an unanswered indictment of Blair and program directors need to know that going in.