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Graham Smith

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Graham Smith is a senior producer for NPR's All Things Considered.

Every day his responsibilities range from investigation and research, production, field recording, running the program, reporting, and photography.

Smith has worked all over the United States. Overseas Smith has worked in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he produced award-winning coverage of an IED attack and its aftermath in Kandahar.

After joining NPR in December 2002, Smith spent six years as supervising senior producer for NPR's All Things Considered. Before NPR, Smith was the senior producer and director on The Connection and Here and Now, programs produced by WBUR, an NPR Member Station in Boston. He served as director of the Christian Science Monitor's Monitor Radio from 1995-1997.

During the course of his career, Smith has received many accolades including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism award and the Edward R Murrow Investigative Reporting award for his work with Youth Radio. Smith also received the Edward R. Murrow award for Hard News for his work in Afghanistan, the George Foster Peabody award for work with Youth Radio, and he was a Pew Gatekeeper Fellow.

Smith studied English and history at the University of New Hampshire.

Parallels
11:31 am
Fri June 28, 2013

U.S. Pacifies An Afghan Village, But Will It Stay That Way?

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Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A U.S. soldier walks down a dirt road during the final U.S. patrol near the village of Arghandab, near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. The area has long been a Taliban stronghold, and the Americans were turning the area over to the Afghan army.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
U.S. soldiers prepare for a foot patrol in Arghandab. The American forces have pacified the area for now, but it's been a tough fight, and there are concerns that the Taliban will attempt to reassert themselves after the U.S. troops leave.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
An Afghan Army soldier brings in a local farmer the Americans wanted detained. The American soldiers later handed the man back to the Afghans, who eventually let him go. The incident stoked both anger and fear among local residents.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Members of the Afghan Local Police are trying to separate insurgents from the villagers in the Arghandab River Valley near Kandahar.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
U.S. Army Sgt. Sean Rodman helps lead a foot patrol in Arghandab.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
The American troops are drawing down and handing over responsibility to Afghan security forces. The U.S. plans to end all combat missions in Afghanistan by the end of next year.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
The Afghan Local Police is a semi-volunteer force. They are minimally paid and minimally trained, and when the Americans leave, they will be left to defend their country on their own.
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Originally published on Fri August 2, 2013 5:04 pm

  • Listen to the story on "All Things Considered"

When my NPR colleague Tom Bowman and I visited the southern Afghan district of Arghandab in the fall of 2009, we headed out on patrol with the U.S. Stryker battalion. We soon found ourselves in the middle of a firefight. A U.S. vehicle was blown up and two Americans were killed in an attack that was all too common at the time.

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The Salt
2:32 pm
Thu May 10, 2012

Thomas Jefferson's Vegetable Garden: A Thing Of Beauty And Science

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Credit Leonard Phillips / Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello
Thomas Jefferson's garden at Monticello served as an experimental laboratory for garden vegetables from around the world.
Credit Melissa Block / NPR
Peter Hatch has been Monticello's director of gardens and grounds since 1977. When he first came to the estate, this garden didn't exist: Forty percent of it was a parking lot for tourists; the rest was planted with flowers. It took years of careful archaeological work and research to reconstruct the garden according to Jefferson's design.
Credit Melissa Block / NPR
Over his lifetime, Jefferson grew 330 varieties of 99 species of vegetables and herbs. Brown Dutch lettuce was a Jefferson favorite: He'd sow it in the fall to harvest through the winter months.
Credit Graham Smith / NPR
The vegetable garden at Monticello acts as a seed bank to preserve the heirloom varieties of vegetables that Jefferson grew. Seeds are collected, cleaned and packaged for sale.
Credit Graham Smith / NPR
A bee does its work in a thick bed of crimson clover. Jefferson experimented with clover in his fields after returning from France.
Credit Melissa Block / NPR
Peas were Jefferson's favorite vegetable. He grew 24 varieties, devoting an uncommon amount of garden real estate to them. Marrowfat peas — staked here with alder branches — are a late-season variety, best for drying.
Credit Graham Smith / NPR
Sea kale is a perennial cabbagelike plant that grows wild on the seacoast of Great Britain. In the wild, shoots are covered by shifting sands, which prevents the production of chlorophyll and keeps the leaves white and more tender.
Credit Graham Smith / NPR
Asparagus was a prime part of Jefferson's garden and received "uncommon attention," according to Hatch. Jefferson took pride in documenting when his asparagus first pushed through the ground and first came to the table.
Credit Melissa Block / NPR
After Jefferson left the presidency, he planted a retirement garden at Monticello that is 300 yards long and supported by a stone wall 12 feet high in places. It looks out over the rolling Virginia Piedmont.
Credit Graham Smith
A bee buzzes the crimson clover at Monticello.
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Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 9:48 am

When you listen to All Things Considered host Melissa Block's story about Thomas Jefferson's garden, you'll hear how he cared about putting peas on the table and sharing seeds with his friends. He also set loftier goals for his vegetable garden: Monticello's south-facing expanse was a living laboratory for a lifelong tinkerer and almost obsessive record keeper. Jefferson was, in many ways, a crop scientist.

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National Security
1:34 pm
Mon October 24, 2011

The Osprey: Good Reviews, But A Costly Program

Credit David Gilkey / NPR

A U.S. Marine Osprey at Camp Leatherneck in southern Afghanistan. The aircraft suffered multiple problems when it was being developed, but is now getting praise from those flying it.

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Originally published on Mon October 24, 2011 6:05 pm

Over three decades, the U.S. has spent billions of dollars and lost 30 lives creating a unique aircraft, the Osprey, which lifts off like a helicopter and flies like a plane.

After all these problems, the Marines are now using them widely in Afghanistan, and the Osprey is getting excellent reviews.

But the aircraft now faces another question: Because it's so expensive, should the Osprey program be slashed as the Pentagon looks for cuts?

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