AJR  The Beat
From AJR,   November 2002

More to Say   

A Vermont television station hires former ABC News correspondent Barrie Dunsmore to deliver weekly commentaries.

By Kathryn S. Wenner
Kathryn S. Wenner, a former AJR associate editor, is a copy editor at the Washington Post.     


Former ABC News diplomatic and foreign affairs correspondent Barrie Dunsmore, who retired in 1995 after 30 years with the network, returns to the air as a weekly commentator on ABC affiliate WVNY, which serves Burlington, Vermont, and Plattsburgh, New York. A friend who thought Dunsmore had too much time on his hands let News Director Eric Greene know he lived nearby--and Greene took it from there. Called "Barrie Dunsmore's Views from Vermont," the 90-second pieces, shot outdoors, will often address issues far from the picturesque Green Mountain State. "I do have a lifetime of experience dealing with foreign affairs at a fairly high level," says Dunsmore, 63, who traveled with presidents and secretaries of state, and covered Europe, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. His first commentary addressed the debate on war with Iraq. "I'm not trying to tell people what to think," says Dunsmore, quoting the late CBS News commentator Eric Sevareid. "I'm trying to tell them what they might think about."

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