Michael T. Kelly, UNH 1979, died in April 2003 while covering the war in Iraq for The Atlantic Monthly and The Washington Post. He was 46 when he was killed in a Humvee accident while traveling with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division near Baghdad. He left his wife, Madelyn, and two young sons, all of whom came to campus in October 2003 for a UNH journalism alumni reunion at which a new scholarship in Kelly’s name was announced. 

A history major before UNH had a journalism major, Kelly took journalism courses, reported for TNH and did a reporting internship at the Beverly Times in Massachusetts (now part of the Salem News, where we still send interns). After graduation, he spent several years in television as a researcher and associate producer for ABC's "Good Morning America." Later he worked as a reporter and feature writer for the Cincinnati Post and Baltimore Sun, and as a freelance writer for GQ, Esquire, Playboy and The Boston Globe. In the first Gulf War, Kelly reported from Kuwait and Iraq as a freelance correspondent for The Boston Globe and The New Republic; his work resulted in a National Magazine Award and an Overseas Press award. The international literary organization PEN honored Kelly's book Martyrs' Day: Chronicle of a Small War as the best first book of nonfiction published in 1993.

Kelly covered the 1992 presidential campaign for The New York Times and then wrote the "Letter from Washington" for The New Yorker for two years. He served as editor in chief of The New Republic and then of the National Journal before becoming the editor of The Atlantic in 1999. He also wrote a nationally syndicated political column. After his death in Iraq, Kelly was named Columnist of the Year by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and won the Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity in Journalism. In October 2003, Kelly's and Pearl's names were added, along with those of Elizabeth Neuffer of The Boston Globe and David Bloom of NBC News, to the National War Correspondents Memorial in Burkittsville, Maryland.

Atlantic Media company has set up a national journalism award honoring a writer or editor whose work exemplifies a quality that animated Michael Kelly’s own career: the fearless pursuit and expression of truth.” Read about the winners.

You can read some of the many columns written about Mike after his death, as well as a little of Mike’s own writing. 

Read about the national Michael Kelly Award for fearless journalism.