DAVID FILIPOV made it to Northern Iraq the hard way. Filipov, who heads the Boston Globe’s Moscow bureau, had been reporting from Baghdad in the weeks leading up to war. But on Friday, March 14, five days before the bombing began, he was kicked out for using his satellite phone without permission.

Thus began a four-day odyssey. He drove to Amman, Jordan — stopping en route, he told me by e-mail, " to interview an Iraqi operating an SA-9 anti-aircraft battery in the desert. " He added that he " nearly got in trouble at the Iraqi border for having an Arabic phrase book that included a map of Israel. "

Once in Amman, he spent a few hours writing stories and answering e-mails. On Saturday, he flew home to Moscow by way of Milan, Italy, and spent some time with his five-year-old son. (He also has a six-year-old son by a previous relationship.) And on Tuesday, March 18, using the Iranian visa he had just been granted, he flew to Iran. " Through contacts with the Kurdish Democratic Party, " he said, " I was escorted to the Iranian border, where, for a small fee, I was allowed to enter Iraq. "

His first piece from Northern Iraq — co-written with veteran Globe reporter Charles Sennott — appeared in the paper just two days later.

With the war in Iraq now more than two weeks old, the country’s attention, not surprisingly, has shifted to the national and international media: the major television networks, the all-news cable channels, radio services such as NPR and the BBC, and national newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Serious news junkies discuss the merits of British papers such as the Guardian and the Independent, debate whether ArabNews.com is just a propaganda arm of the Saudi government, and share tips on how to get into the new English-language Web site of Al-Jazeera, which was taken down by pro-war hackers almost as soon as it went online.

But this is no less a story for local news organizations. Most people here don’t buy the Times — they get the Boston Globe delivered at home, and perhaps pick up a Boston Herald on their way to work. And for all the hours of continuing coverage being offered on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, the local newscasts at 10 and 11 p.m. remain the television news medium of choice for many. The challenge for Boston-area news organizations has been to cover the war in a way that’s thorough enough to keep their readers, viewers, and listeners informed while offering something other than a rehash of what’s already been reported elsewhere.

Not surprisingly, the Globe, New England’s largest daily newspaper, has produced the most ambitious coverage. According to foreign editor Jim Smith, the paper has 13 or 14 journalists in the region. The paper’s front page is filled with war-related stories every day, and it is publishing a daily eight-page section titled " War in Iraq. " The Globe lacks the resources of the Times, its larger corporate sibling; indeed, Globe editor Martin Baron notes that the Times has 11 reporters and photographers embedded with military units, compared to just four (all the slots that were offered) for the Globe. Yet Baron professes to be pursuing the same mission as his larger competitors.

" We’re trying to cover the war in all respects, " Baron says. " I think we’re trying to offer our readers a total picture of what’s going on. "

In fact, the Globe’s coverage has been remarkably good, and if it hasn’t been quite as thorough as that of the national papers, it has made up for it with enterprise. Two notable examples: John Donnelly’s piece last Friday, documenting the overly optimistic prewar predictions of those in and close to the Bush administration; and, earlier, a story by Charles Radin showing that Palestinians on the West Bank — even educated people who loathe Saddam Hussein — are so repulsed by American aggression that they hope Iraq can somehow prevail.

IF THE RESOURCES available to the Globe pale compared to those of, say, the Times and the Post, the same is true of the Herald’s when compared to the Globe’s. Yet the Herald, perpetually challenged to do more with less, has managed to respond in some interesting ways.

The Herald has only two journalists in the region — reporter Jules Crittenden, who’s embedded with an Army unit, and photographer Kuni Takahashi, who, according to editor Andy Costello, left his embedded post after chafing at military restrictions and is now hooking up with American forces on his own.

But Crittenden — who’s covered past conflicts in, among other places, Kosovo and Kashmir — has emerged as something of a star, both because of his swashbuckling writing style and the way the Herald has packaged his work: in a column titled " At the Front, " complete with a headshot that looks as though he’s just completed a Special Forces operation. Crittenden is also writing a war diary for the media Web site Poynter.org, which has become more fragmentary as his unit has gotten farther into Iraq.

In response to my request for comment, Crittenden e-mailed: " Satphone connection is dicey and time is short ... 90 percent of your answers are ‘embedded’ in the poynter essays. " In Crittenden’s first entry for Poynter, he explains why he volunteered for such hazardous duty: " It is beyond my power to correct the injustices of the world, and I don’t delude myself with the thought that I am somehow doing that. But to live this privileged life without being able to share the knowledge of exactly how safe and wealthy we are would be an injustice. "

The Herald has been eye-popping graphically, running a huge wraparound photo of Baghdad under attack in the first days of the war and publishing eight additional pages every day, many of them photo spreads. The paper has also placed special emphasis on tracking local military men and women, inviting readers to share their stories about family members who are overseas.

Two other Greater Boston media outlets have sent their own people to the Middle East: WBUR Radio (90.9 FM), a publicly owned, news-oriented station affiliated with Boston University, and WCVB-TV (Channel 5). WBUR’s Michael Goldfarb is reporting from Northern Iraq. And according to the station’s general manager, Jane Christo, Connection host Dick Gordon and a producer will be dispatched to Baghdad as soon as that’s feasible — possibly as early as this week, although she says that the idea was for them to " go right in quickly, after the fall of Baghdad, " a plan that now appears to be on hold.

Goldfarb’s reports (in streaming audio) and his online war diary are available on WBUR’s Web site, www.wbur.org.

WCVB news director Coleen Marren says her station decided to keep its on-the-scene reporter, David Muir, at Central Command in Qatar rather than embed him with a military unit so that he can track " our viewers’ daughters and sons " as they pass through. " When you’re embedded, you can’t report all the time, " Marren notes. " He could be in a situation where we wouldn’t hear from him for a couple days. " Muir’s reports are online at WCVB’s Web site, www.thebostonchannel.com.

Though the other television stations do not have any of their own people in the war zone, several have found ways to obtain more-localized reports. WBZ-TV (Channel 4) news director Peter Brown says that corporate parent CBS has made available three reporters with whom he can communicate directly. WLVI-TV (Channel 56), a Tribune station, gets updates from Qatar delivered by a reporter for the chain. (Officials of WHDH-TV/Channel 7 and WFXT-TV/Channel 25 did not return calls seeking comment.)

Charles Kravetz, New England Cable News’s vice-president of news, acknowledges the difficulties that face local media operations during a time of national crisis — especially one such as his, which is on 24 hours a day.

" We have the perspective from home, and that’s a useful adjunct to a story like this, " Kravetz says. He notes, too, that NECN has access to ABC and Associated Press video, and has been able to broadcast interviews with reporters for the New York Times, the Globe, and ABC. But he adds, " We don’t try to fool ourselves or the public about the importance or the breadth or the quality of what’s produced by the national media.... You can’t have such hubris as to think you can beat CNN. "

With a big local story such as the Rhode Island nightclub fire, Kravetz says, the size of NECN’s audience soars. At a time like this, all he can do is hope that the numbers will hold steady. So far, he says, they have.