Salon.com
May 24, 2003 Saturday
BYLINE: By Michelle Goldberg

Iraq’s only independent newspaper is run by high school and college students out of an alcove in the lobby of Baghdad’s Al Fanar Hotel. Working with a $5,000 grant from the nonprofit peace group Voices in the Wilderness, 14 unpaid writers, editors, photographers and publishers labored for a month to create the debut issue of Al-Muajaha, the Iraqi Witness, which hit the streets five days ago. In its pages, budding reporters and essayists examine the violent, chaotic but cautiously hopeful world being born around them, expressing outrage at the Americans even as they revel in their newfound freedom.

Newspapers have proliferated in postwar Iraq, but most are the organs of political parties. Al-Muajaha’s staff, though, treasure their autonomy. They learned journalism during the war, working as translators and fixers for the legions of foreign reporters who descended on Iraq. Some of them have been interview subjects as well, and they studied the way professionals found their angles and formulated their questions. Now they’re turning these new skills back on the Americans, demanding accountability from their would-be rulers.