NPR is your leading source for analysis. Our Sources & Methods podcast gives listeners a deeper understanding of national security — as only NPR can.

Our latest episode breaks down what you need to know about the war in Iran, and you can listen and subscribe here.

Read on to hear from host Mary Louise Kelly herself about why our reporting matters now more than ever.

My first reporting trip to Iran was in January 2020. The U.S. had just assassinated Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s most senior general. My producer and I landed at Tehran’s airport on the morning of his funeral procession; hundreds of thousands of people were pouring into the streets. We followed and interviewed as many of them as we could, weaving between Iranians with their fists in the air and tears rolling down their cheeks. Many held signs reading “Death to America.” But more than one leaned close and told us, “We have no problem with the people of America. Just your leader.”

That reporting trip was one of many where I glimpsed the value of being on the ground. Of being able to share what we hear first-hand, what we see with our own eyes. The work of a foreign correspondent is imperfect; you go in knowing that you’ll never grasp the complexity of a place with the insight of a local reporter. But there is value to fresh eyes and ears, and to the resources that a major news outlet can bring to a story.

Mary Louise Kelly in Iran, 2023.

Marjan Yazdi for NPR

Today we live in a firehose of international news. So many people, so many podcasts telling us what to think about it. Many feature armchair analysts or former officials, and many of them are smart and worth listening to. But that’s different from venturing out in the world, asking people to share their stories, and bearing witness.
So we decided to launch a podcast that restores the focus on… reporting.

We named it Sources & Methods, shorthand for... How we know what we know? Who told us? Our hope is that listeners walk away every week with a sense of curiosity about the world, inspired by our own curiosity. You get to listen as some of the best nat sec reporters working today compare notes and try to figure things out in real time.

As I write, we’re prepping this week’s episode. Our Middle East bureau chief Daniel Estrin will join from Tel Aviv, where he’s been filing around the clock, in between running to the safe room every time the air raid sirens go off. Our veteran Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman has been working the phones, calling sources he’s cultivated over decades at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. I’ll be asking questions, trying to ferret out surprising or telling or even funny details tucked away in our reporters’ notebooks, that might illuminate these unsettled times.

Won’t you join us?

Listen and Subscribe Here

Sincerely,

Mary Louise Kelly

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