Continuing Coverage: The Boston Marathon Bombing, Here & Now

On April 15th lives were lost, destroyed, and changed in Boston, and the staff of Here and Now tried to absorb the aftershocks of the Marathon Bombing while jumping into position to tell the story to the rest of the country.

On the 16th we had reports from long time Marathon watchers like Producer Alex Ashlock, as well as the first, firsthand account from an ER, from Boston Medical Center ER director Dr. Ron Medzon. He told the heartbreaking story of a dancer who asked him to save her leg. Within days we heard from her friends, who wrote to ask Host Robin Young to come to the hospital. On Sunday she sat and waited in the lobby all day until Ballroom Dancer Adrianne Haslet-Davis was ready, their conversation aired on Monday the 22nd and was the first with an amputee.

Right after the bombings, we saw a picture with a familiar face, the Man in the Cowboy Hat. Carlos Arredondo had been on the program several times, after the death of his son in Iraq and his own failed suicide attempt, and then the suicide of his remaining son. On the 18th he came in to our studios to talk about his rescue of bomb victim Jeff Bauman.

Author Dennis Lehane, terrorism expert Jessica Stern, were part of a parade of guests who helped us try to make sense of this difficult time.

Then came Friday morning. The city was on lock down, but many on the Here and Now staff came in overnight to help our station coverage of the police chase and shootout in a neighborhood where colleagues like Jon Peck lived. When the names of the bombs suspects were released early Friday morning, Host Robin Young saw the younger brother was 19, had gone to Rindge and Latin High School in Cambridge, as had her nephew. This was indeed the young man they called Jahar, one of the most popular kids in the school. Early that morning and again on Here and Now at noon they were the first to tell the world who he was, with all the attendant consequences.

It's somewhat uncomfortable to submit coverage of the Boston Marathon Bombings for award consideration when we're well aware of the heroics of so many people that day; we've included many in this submission. But we humbly believe that while it's chance that placed us in the middle of breaking news, our years of reporting breaking news and our knowledge of the area built a muscle that served our listeners well when it counted.