"I'm doing double duty right now," said the Boston Irish Reporter's managing editor Bill Forry, referring to his journalism and to the humanitarian work being done out of his building.
The city of Boston has set up offices to coordinate its response upstairs from the Boston Haitian Reporter, which Forry also edits. "So we're well positioned to cover the relief efforts," he said.
He is married to Massachusetts State Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry, whose parents emigrated from Haiti in the late 1960s. So far, the Dorcenas have been able establish that most family members back home are safe.
Forry joined the Irish paper five years after it was founded by his parents Ed and Mary Forry in 1990. He founded the Haitian paper in 2001. "I started it with my brother-in-law who has since left the business," he said.
Aside those from the Haiti or with strong family roots there, the paper is also read by people who've worked in the country with NGOs, such Partners in Health.
The Haitian community, one of the largest in North America, was well served in the electronic media, but there was no print publication. Forry's paper, which is distributed free at 300 locations, has an editorial emphasis on the Haitian-American experience in the metropolitan Boston area.
"It's a labor of love," he said. "It's not a big money maker."
For Bill Forry's video interview with George-Marie Jasmin, coordinator of an earthquake crisis center in operation in Dorchester and for extensive coverage of the crisis, go to www.bostonhaitian.com.
