The mainstream media just doesn't "get it."
City High graduate launches English publication in Baghdad
Friday, July 04, 2003
By Jeff Vandam
The Grand Rapids Press
When David Enders, editor of the Baghdad Bulletin, looked at the proofs for his upstart newsmagazine before it went to press, he noticed something askew.
The printer hired by Enders and his partners -- an enthusiastic Iraqi man who lives several miles north of Baghdad -- had made a mistake.
Instead of printing the text of the English-language magazine from left to right, he printed it from right to left, the way Arabic text is written.
The error forced Enders, a 1999 graduate of Grand Rapids' City High School, and his staff to wait an extra day to release their second issue on the streets of Baghdad. Iraqis and occupying soldiers had been waiting two weeks since the release of the Bulletin's inaugural issue, which was an instant success.
When the 24-page issue finally came out June 24 -- printed correctly -- it featured on its cover a brilliant blue banner and a photo of Iraqis marching with protest banners. Inside were articles about Baghdad's closed stock exchange, the Iraqi black market for passports and potential regime change in Iran. Baghdad residents who read the first issue of the Bulletin said they had not seen anything quite like it.
Enders, 22, and a few friends from American University in Beirut came to the Iraqi capital less than two months earlier on a guarded caravan to create their publication.
Within just a month of their arrival, they had secured funding, printing presses, an office and a stable of writers to produce their first issue, which hit newsstands June 9 at a price of 500 Iraqi dinars, or about 40 cents. The online version is at www.baghdadbulletin.com.
With little more than a series of internships as his journalistic background, Enders and his colleagues are striving to bring responsible journalism to Baghdad.
"It's gone quite well, though it's hard to tell whether that's because people really like our content or because we're virtually the only English-language publication available on the street," Enders said.
The Baghdad Bulletin was not born in a news meeting or a smoke-filled room, but over a cup of tea in the England home of Ralph Hassall, a 23-year-old Briton who is friends with Enders.
Hassall was at home during his Easter holiday from Arabic classes at the American University in Beirut when his mother made a suggestion to him. "You know what Iraq will need?" she said. "An English-language paper."
Hassall thought the idea might interest Enders, whom he had met in Beirut earlier in the year at the university there. Enders, a University of Michigan student who spent his last semester abroad, had some journalistic experience through internships at The Grand Rapids Press, the Associated Press and The New York Times.
Because Enders and Hassall had discussed traveling east to Iraq from Lebanon to pursue free-lance journalism work, Hassall called Enders to tell him about his mother's suggestion.
While receptive to the idea, Enders' primary concern was money. How would they fund something it?
Hassall approached a few financiers in London and secured a loan of 10,000 pounds -- or about $16,700 -- enough to pay for living expenses and equipment in Baghdad for a few months. Less than two weeks later, on May 1, Enders and Hassall hitched a ride on a caravan to Iraq from Amman, Jordan, to look at old Baath Party printing presses.
Things went better than Enders anticipated. A few weeks later, he and Hassall were living and working in a large house in the upscale Baghdad district of Mansur. The house, which belonged to an Iraqi man who had fled to Lebanon, was across the street from the home of Jalal Talabani, the founder and Secretary General of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
On May 18, Enders posted an entry on his Web page for his friends and family to read. "Baghdad is kind of a mess," he wrote. "Imagine a place with absolutely no laws, and yes, it is true that pretty much everyone (EVERYONE) besides me is carrying a gun."
Enders' mother, Denise Joseph-Enders, a special education consultant at Comstock Park High School, thought the Bulletin was a joke when Enders first e-mailed her about it. Now she says she has come around to the idea. Sort of.
"He feels that this is a good thing to do and the right thing to do, so I have really no control," she said. "And I'm happy for him."
After a whirlwind of long days and little sleep for the Bulletin's staff of 11 people, most of whom were paid $50 a week, the first issue hit the streets June 9.
Enders and Hassall attracted a range of guest writers to their pages, including Ann Clwyd, the United Kingdom's special envoy for human rights in Iraq, and Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a former Iraqi exile who is a reporter for the Beirut Daily Star.
Advertising is key at most publications, and the Bulletin is no different. But circulation drives ad rates. So while the Bulletin's first issue had a 40-cent cover price, Enders and Hassall thought it wise to drum up interest by giving away most of the 10,000 copies they had printed.
They hired a staff of five Baghdadis to bring the paper to English-speaking neighborhoods. The people they hired were so pleased to get the job that they acquired matching hats and shirts without any prompting. And they told Enders they would have delivered the Bulletin for free. Enders said the first issue was gobbled up by American and British soldiers, who were desperate for something to read in English, and even more so by Iraqis, who were desperate for news of their country's reconstruction.
The country has many English-speaking Iraqis, in part owing to past British occupation.
Now that the second issue is in the hands of the Iraqi public, the challenge for the Bulletin is to start turning a profit. Enders and Hassall have an offer from a news agency asking them to serve as the agency's principal source for news in the Middle East. The U.S. Army wants to share printing presses with the Bulletin for its own newspaper.
For his part, Enders is settling into his new role. He recently adopted the style of many Iraqi men by growing a mustache.
"I don't like it, but I'm not going to tell him," said his girlfriend, Lauren Aposhian, 21, of the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak. "He says he thinks it makes him look older, but it doesn't. It makes him look like a 12-year-old with a mustache. But if it's going to increase his chances of survival, I'm all for it."
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